The Evolution of a Bird – Sketches

Late in 2012, I was preparing for my solo show at Horace Williams House in Chapel Hill and I began creating papier-mache birds to hang from the ceiling. You can see some examples of my finished work in my Gallery. The birds have become quite popular, and I am enjoying them so much that I thought it might be fun to show you the process I go through in creating one.

Because there are many phases in the creation process, I will do a separate post about each phase. This will enable me to share several photos for each stage and for you to really see how things evolve and continue to change over time.

These photos won’t show you everything (like how many different shades I experiment with before finding the right body colors or how I embed the wires I use to hang each piece), but they will give you a good sampling of the progression each creation goes through before its public debut.

Today’s post is of the sketching phase. As you will see, I do many drawings in my sketchbook to first determine the overall shape of the creature and then to get an idea of what each of the detailed patterns and the color schemes that will adorn her body should look like. This is only a sampling of the drawings I did for this particular bird.

Next week, I’ll do another post to demonstrate sculpting the body and beginning to add overall color.

If you have questions, I’d love for you to leave them in the Comments section.

Enjoy!