As mentioned in my last post, we were staying with our friends Richard and MY while recuperating in Hong Kong and this was the view that greeted me each morning looking out the front window! The mountains are a bit misty in this pic but for an artist, loads of atmosphere! I would often set up the scope and watch egrets, herons and other waterbirds feeding and wading in the waters outside. From the couch, I could lie quietly with my binoculars and watch other birds come in to the birdbath set up just outside the window - always a very enjoyable experience. And from the upstairs bedroom, I had great views into the small wood where thrushes and redstarts could be found, and I was often entertained by the calls of a very early Koel and later when the weather warmed up a little, the scratchy squeaky but sweet song of a Violet-whistling Thrush just outside the window.
Since I was not able to move around much, I started by giving myself a drawing project where I would open a book and draw at random in my sketchbook. After a few days of this, I felt able to start doing watercolor studies of some of the birds I had seen. The first was of a Grey Heron (above) which came out okay but was done on horrible paper in a cheap sketchbook - new reserved for drawing only! Later I did more studies of these birds along with some of the rarer birds seen during Jan and Feb. These will follow in later posts. Grey Heron, watercolor, 6" x 3.5" - sketchbook study.
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