The cheaper flights back to the West Coast required a layover, and for some reason, I decided to repeat last year’s business class trip to Miami, a long layover, and then fly to Portland.
The humid 80 degrees is a very stark contrast to the 20-degree Boston or dreary Portland.
I haven’t worked up the courage to rent a car, so I took the bus out to Miami Beach. I saw 1… 2… 5 Palm Warblers hopping around. We’d spot one or two up in Prospect Park, and see a little field full of the cute little birds. A “magnificent frigatebird” soared overhead with weird, long wings and a hooked bill.
I hadn’t realized all of the Art Deco architecture! Plenty of pastels and arcs.
By the end of the 8 hours lugging around my backpack in the humidity, I’m sticky and ready to get the 7-hour flight back home over with. Back to hummingbirds and chestnut-backed chickadees, and showing my parents the documentary Listers.
I worked a bit on the front-facing bird pose, which I haven’t touched for a few months. Some things were broken, but it was good enough for the cardinal I wanted to draw for the snow.
I was also at a coffee shop in Portland, and a child came over and asked what I was doing on my computer. Coming from MIT Media Lab, I was prepared to demo. I showed the round little bird with snow around it, and then made a bunch of them and had them flap their wings. The child asked if I could make stars, and so after some fumbling, I changed the snowflakes into stars.
I feel like I’m nearly done creating the outline of the bird and bill. It took me a lot longer than I thought, especially given that it is just a prerequisite of my intention of showing the patterns that the feather gradation can create.
Given that I want to create the rest of the birds of MIT. Though I’m starting to wonder if I should limit the feather-perfect ones to the songbirds, woodpeckers, and pigeons/doves, so I don’t need to figure out the feathers for cormorants, geese, herons, and hawks.