I went this winter on a miserable overcast day to Burnaby Lake, trekking out by transit and laden with camera and pieces of bread in a plastic bag. Near the Burnaby Art Gallery I scoped out a spot with crows lurking as only crows can lurk, and proceeded to do a photo shoot. The photos themselves were not award-winning, by any means, but have enabled me to capture some of the moods, attitudes and nuances of crows.
This crow is pigeon-toed!!!!
This week I will add a few more crows to the collection on the website; 
This little fellow is called "Steppin' Out". He's a cheeky little guy and has a bit of attitude, which was why I found him so endearing. I wanted to emphasize his forward movement, so I used the diagonal line. The newsprint was fun to have in the piece, as was the butterfly wing.
Here is a much larger piece, "Celtic Gold Crow".
Crows like shiny objects and this one has found a large hoard of it. The ivy I brought in from my balcony to draw and I applied the earring at the end with epoxy. I was quite loose with the background, laying in big washes of colour, scrubbing in colour here, wiping it off there. The crow was photocopied from a drawing onto pastel paper and then touched up with a few touches of pastel. The "gold" is gold leaf. There are also a few pieces of coloured decorative paper from Paper-Ya in Vancouver.
Sketching birds from life has always been somewhat problematic for me, as, with any other animal, they move around. However I've had some success at capturing the look of swans and chickens and slower moving birds. Perhaps it is time soon to wander down the Inlet Trail to where the ducks are... In 2015 I plan on doing a lot more drawing just for the pleasure and the techique of it.
May this post find you peaceful and at ease and creating your heart's desire.