100 Birds Challenge - New Project

OK, I am just not involved in enough projects, so, I added another! Ha! This is a challenge to draw, sketch, or, paint one hundred birds to improve my knowlege of birds and improve my arting skills! Here's a link to the original challenge thread on WetCanvas;

http://wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=563498

I know I will not be as prolific with the birdies so have given myself a long cushy deadline of one year. I do hope to do more than just sketches from photos which is how I am starting out. I will incorporate birds into my regular output of equine art and also plan to paint some bird specific paintings along the way. My main hold-ups for producing finished art for this (and the other projects) is my lack of original reference material. If I work from photographic reference material, I much prefer to use my own, although for these projects, I have been using the images provided from the WetCanvas reference image library. I just don't get out and about much these days to get my own reference materials, so, I am relying, for now, on photos I took years ago at the zoo and parks. They will run out fast, though, so, I am going to have to actually step outside the house sometime to work from life or take new photos! These are just some quickies sketches to start with.

Black Swan

Snow Owl