Figure Friday - plus, duck update....

Today was Life Drawing - with coughing. I've been fighting a truly horrid head-cold all week. This is the first day I've even felt up to attempt going out. Trying to draw from life with a head full of cotton is an interesting experience....

(1-2 minute gestures...)

5+ minute poses...

15 minute pose... I managed to stay for about half of the session before giving up.

I took a gander at the ducks on the way out (there are flocks and flocks more of them just out of frame).

There was this little clutch of young looking ducks mid-stream - looking suspiciously like older versions of the ducklings we saw a couple of months ago...? Am crossing my fingers that they are.

I did also see a large flock of young moms pushing strollers in the brief bout of sunshine we had, but couldn't pull out my camera fast enough to catch. :-)

Figure Friday - plus, *more* Ducklings!

Sleepy life drawing today. Certainly make drawing slower and harder...

Couldn't wait to get outside afterwards, and check on the status of the ducklings -

The good news is they are still darling, the sad news is that there are only 6 left (last week there were 8).

Due to the sunshine and the holiday weekend, there were any number of children there - many feeding the birds (and note the seagull in the foreground. Another variety to add to the mix..)

(duckling scoring hunk of biscuit!)

Momma duck continues to herd them along...

...their favorite place continues to be in the water...

... and the ubiquitous crows continue to supervise.

Sunday Sketching - plus, more Ducklings!

 Breaking in the teensy new purse Moleskine...

And since they were so darling, I thought more ducklings deserved posting... :-)

 More mommy and babies... They can't be more than a couple of days old, they are still all fuzz, no feathers...

 Herding them along the embankment...

 Despite being uber-young, they seemed to know just what to do and raced down to the water...

 ...and sorry for the blurry, but I thought their return 'in formation' was too cute..

And here's her herding them back - while all sorts of other birds watched, but did not interfere (a couple of roosters are just out of shot).  It'll be interesting to see how much they've grown by next week.

Figure Friday - plus, *Ducklings!*

 Costume life-drawing day....

 5 and 10 minutes...

 20 minutes...

...and one hour.

And then *after* life drawing, when strolling out to the car, guess what I saw - 

There be ducklings! Eight of 'em even!

Here's a Where's Waldo picture for you - how many types of birds do you see? How many males? females? babies?

And while I don't think any crows made it into the above picture, they were around as well, supervising all that was going on.