Written by Cloud 9 instructor Charlene Collins Freeman

We are a few weeks into my Birds! Sketching, Drawing and Painting Birds workshop and I wanted to share a few of our highlights so far. These images are from the sketchbook pages of various students. We are studying bird anatomy, focusing on feather groupings, beaks and feet.

We had a guest visitor, the beautiful Amazon parrot Maya who posed for us as we took photographs of her and studied her feather groupings, feet, beak, and postures. Occasionally she talked to us.

This week we went to Woodland Park Zoo and sketched in the wild. We lucked out with the weather and filled up pages and pages with sketches. Several students also brought cameras and captured some great photos to work from later.

This cheeky Cock-of-the-Rock feigned great interest in me and my sketches. She sat right in front of me and eventually flew over to sit beside me. As I turned my attention back to my sketching, she grabbed my kneaded eraser and flew off with it!

We regrouped after a few hours of sketching and it was amazing to see how many sketches people were able to do in a few hours. In the weeks ahead we will be drawing from mounts and skins. It has been an absolute joy and I look forward to the next half of this workshop with such a great group of artists!

For the birds!