British Songbirds: A daily sketchbook challenge
Regular readers will know I love a good art challenge, but I just wanted to write about my latest one, as it has ticked so many boxes for me in terms of education, creativity, and artistic skills development.
A bird a day - specifically a songbird
I’ve been participating in the #birbruary challenge hosted by Amanda Pearson of Winging It Drawing to draw a songbird found in the British Isles every day throughout the month of February, in support of the charity Songbird Survival.
Songbird Survival is a charity that funds research into the alarming decline in Britain’s much-loved songbirds. They raise awareness of the plight of songbirds and other small birds, research the causes of their decline and promote solutions for the restoration of songbird numbers.
Daily Sketchbook Journey: Maintaining the habit, but with flexibility
Coincidentally, my own personal sketchbook daily drawing plan for the first 50 days of 2024 had been focused on sketching garden birds. I’d been focusing on a single bird for a 10-day period, experimenting with different drawing materials and approaches, but it felt ok to stop at 31 days (having spent a week each sketching robins, blue tits and song thrushes) and to pick up the songbird prompts for February.
I decided that I’d approach this as an exercise in consistency and that I’d therefore apply the same materials and approach each day for every bird. I’ve therefore been doing a rough pencil sketch that I’ve then defined using Indian ink and a dip pen, before adding watercolour and a hand-lettered label (also using dip pen and ink).
Some of my illustrations from prompts early in the challenge for a black redstart, blackbird, crossbill and grasshopper warbler
Developing as an artist
I’ve really enjoyed the experience and if I compare birds I illustrated at the beginning of the month, with those nearer the end I can definitely see improvement in my observation and application of form and colour.
After a few weeks my heart did sink to discover the bird for the day was once again ‘black’, but it did make me focus harder on whether this was only superficially the case. For example, everyone knows a magpie is black and white, but actually, they’ve got a lot of blue/green/purple, particularly in their tail and wing feathers.
Learning through illustration
It has also been interesting to find out more about the birds to add to my daily Instagram post. You’ve got to feel slightly sorry for the poor dipper, described on most ornithology websites as ‘chunky’ shaped, or be fascinated that the collective noun for rooks is a parliament because of their habit of standing in a circle around a single bird in the appearance of a ‘trial’. I’ve also learnt that a disturbing number of once-familiar species are at Red or Amber on the Conservation Status list.
Illustrations from later in the month of a meadow pipit, pied wagtail, stone chat and mistle thrush
New collection coming soon
I’ve so enjoyed the challenge that I’m planning to continue on with a songbird a day for another few weeks beyond the end of February, so that I have included some of the more traditional/familiar songbirds alongside those included in the prompt list.
Whilst I started out on this challenge with it having no objective but to be prompting daily creativity, I’ve had some lovely feedback on the illustrations and so I’d definitely like to use some of them in a new British Songbirds collection. I’m planning to incorporate information about Conservation Status and habitat with the illustrations - and, of course, a portion of sales will be going to Songbird Survival to help them halt the decline in our native and visiting songbird populations.