I thought I loved the bittern when I first saw it – and I did – but then I started drawing a snipe and that was it, bye-bye bittern. I’m so fickle. This gorgeous bird is one of Swansea Museum’s taxidermy collection. I did this drawing with a reed pen and my home-made walnut ink. Reed pens are amongst the oldest drawing tools and work really well with the ink. It’s not possible to get a fine controlled line with them, but I like the blobbiness and I think it suits the snipe.
snipes are my favourites too. We sometimes see them here, but they are pretty elusive. Your drawing is wonderful
Thank you. I’ve never seen one in real life – in fact the dead one is the first I’ve seen
Blobbiness will definitely be added to the current vocab.😄
hahaha it’s a proper technical term 😉