Early work...

The blog's been fairly quiet over the bank holiday as I went to York for my birthday (which was last Thursday) and to catch up with friends and family. I did manage to find my old watercolour paints so expect to see those making an appearance soon, and I also received from my parents as a birthday gift John Busby's 'Drawing Birds', it's brilliant and I can't wait to start incorporating the excellent advice therein into my drawing and birding, hopefully they will improve as a result!

Another thing I dug out whilst at my parents' house was a bunch of my old bird drawings and paintings, I thought I'd post them on here for a bit of fun! A lot of fond memories are associated with them and it makes me feel happy to see my youthful enthusiasm clearly visible in the work. Although I only started getting seriously into birding after I finished my first degree in 2006, I was always interested in looking at and drawing birds and nature for as long as I can remember, and I think this early work demonstrates this!

I've arranged them in chronological order, here are the first bits. My mum used to stitch together these little paper booklets for me to make into 'nature books'. I don't remember making this one but as the young me has helpfully written 4 on the front and back, I assume this is how old I was at the time.

Front cover.

Inside pages.

Inside pages.

Inside pages.

Back cover.

My slight obsession with owls is already clear at that young age. I drew them always in pink as it was my favourite colour at the time! Also appearing in the book's haphazard assortment are Chick, Blackbird, Robin, Budgerigar and Tiger. Kudos to the young me for spelling Budgerigar correctly, not sure I could even manage that now - I must've copied it from somewhere!

No date on this one, but I reckon it was probably inspired by an early trip to Slimbridge, or possibly slightly closer to home, the bird garden at Harewood House which was a favourite family day out destination at the time.

Felt-tip flamingoes!

Here's a few paintings and drawings all done in 1993 when I would have been 8 years old.

Peregrine drawing, I remember being pretty pleased with this one!

Kestrel watercolour painting. I remember being less happy with this one than the peregrine!

Lake scene watercolour painting, includes several (just about) identifiable bird species - Canada Goose, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Coot, Grey Heron, Barn Owl, Pheasant and I think that's a tiny Mallard in the nest in the reeds, for some reason?!

Blue Tit watercolour painting in an interesting simplified style.

Another undated felt-tip pen drawing which I rather like, I obviously ran out of patience/blue pen for the sky though.

Blue Tit felt-tip pen drawing.

And finally a couple of drawings from 1999, when I would have been 14 years old.

Kittiwake pencil and felt-tip drawing.

Horned Puffin pencil drawing.

Interesting to see how my work has developed, the last two aren't a million miles away from my current drawings although I'd like to hope I have progressed at least a bit since 1999!