Back to the Drawing Board

I was very excited about making a complete painting with the gouache and digital technique, so within a matter of days, I sketched a concept, shot some reference photos and prepared my watercolor paper.

Here is the sketch in white charcoal and 7B pencil on toned paper. I had played around with the "apple of my eye" metaphor on occasion, but I did not develop this specific composition as I was pretty happy with it, believing any rough spots would fall into place after taking some reference photos. Hahaha, silly me...

These are my reference photos as they appear before I printed them out. All are my own photos minus the page on the very bottom and the wing anatomy drawing. I made the maquette you see in the first few photos from Sculpey and bird feathers mounted on a Tupperware container. I was quite happy that I was able to utilize my handy-dandy bag-o'-bird-feathers, but it took me half-way through my final drawing to realize that something was not right. The "wing" that I was drawing just looked like a feathery eyebrow, lacking the clarity that can be found in the original sketch. For some reason, I did not see or did not want to see that issue when photographing the maquette, so I let is slide until it was too late. Also, I was simply not happy with the format I was drawing, which was having the long side vertical. I imagined that having the long side horizontal would create a better composition, emphasizing the length of the wing-brow. With that said, it's back to the drawing board! Next week, I will post pictures of the new drawing against the old one.