Pear and pocket knife

Another attempt at something metallic, and again not entirely successful. HB mechanical pencil on printer paper; about size A5.

Corkscrew

I had a mighty battle trying to render the metallic shine, and didn't quite succeed...

Broken bottle

What is dangerous trash to everyone else, is priceless treasure to the artist. I found this piece of broken bottle on a sidewalk. I picked it up because it seemed like a rather dangerous thing to leave lying around on a surface where children walk, and because I liked the way the sun's light glinted on it and fell through it. How can one not want to draw such a marvelous thing?

Austin Roberts Bird Sanctuary

A nice place to kill a few hours is the Austin Roberts Bird Sanctuary in Pretoria, where a large enclosure is home to all manner of critters, such as this steenbok:

As one might expect, there is also a large variety of birds, especially waterbirds, such as comb ducks (a.k.a. knob-billed ducks, for obvious reasons):

Blacksmith lapwing (so named because of its call, which resembles a small hammer hitting an anvil):

 Little egret:

 And the ubiquitous Egyptian goose:

Also commonly found at the reserve is the white-faced duck:

and yellow-billed duck:

It is a congenial place to make sketches of birds, something I try now and then when I can work up the courage to try sketching moving targets.

Another weathered leaf

Sketched at Pretoria Botanical Gardens. HB pencil on printer paper, size A5:

Glass, metal and plastic

An empty mustard jar and penny whistle. Couldn't quite capture the metallic look of the whistle's tube. lots of other problems I can see as well, now that the thing is done! But who knows, another few hundred such sketches and they might begin to look like something.

A still life or two

Let's see if Blogger will let me post pictures now. Two recent still life setups, neither really particularly successful: