Skulls, Crows and What the Heart Knows

This weeks Journal 52 had three options for a prompt:  skulls, crows or what the heart knows.

Since I am not a big on drawing hearts and kind of suck at being girly in that way, ‘what the heart knows’ was out. Additionally, skulls felt a little weird, though I nearly used some inspiration that was a crow perched atop a skull.  It was a pretty awesome concept.

My mother loves crows, and I figured she might enjoy a finished drawing if it turned out.  So I went with crows.

Crows are pretty.  Let’s draw one!

I started with my Derwent Graphic 2B pencil on my 140 lb watercolor paper for a rough sketch and really practiced some basic sketching techniques I learned after watching YouTuber Earnest Ward yesterday.  It’s basic stuff, but I’m really missing some basics, so it was super-helpful.

Next, I used my Micron pens in 005, 01, and 03 to put in the shadow and details.  This was quite meditative and I really learned a lot more about using them on this particular sketch.  I added in a quote and practiced hand-lettering some more.

Lastly, the watercolor came out and I went pretty simply with the Sennelier Ivory Black and Pthalocyanine Blue. Pretty feathers.

So that’s it.  I don’t have anything else in my brain today!