Last night I drove down to the Brownsville Art Association for their “Sketchbook Club” night because they were having live raptors from the Cascades Raptor Center come in for posing.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. For the first hour they had a talented instructor give tips on drawing birds, raptors in particular.

tutorial

 

Then we were given photos of various birds and asked to sketch them in increasingly short intervals, culminating in being asked to study a photo, put it down, then draw it.

For the second hour, “Freya” (a peregrine falcon) and “Valentino” (a great horned owl) posed for the group while their handlers answered questions. I don’t have any photos of this because I can’t get them off my phone, but my scans of my sketches will have to do.

This was the best $5 I’ve spent in quite a while!