Beach day or Class day?

Hey there, I was expecting you. Today was more of a work day. I had the intention of painting shells, but my bird feathers from last week were calling to me. Before starting, Professor Lemeh told us about the bird feather index, and naturally, I made a mental note to check it out seeing as I still had no clue what one of my feathers were. 
 
I began sketching with an H pencil just to shake it up a little. From there, I followed the general shapes of the feathers and went as far as to measure everything. With the hour and a half I had left, I began to watercolor finding hints of colors not overtly evident like ultramarine blue in the brown feathers. My painting palette stayed within burnt umber, burnt sienna, a smidge of yellow ochre, a dash of ultramarine blue, as well as a few swipes of white India ink to produce this 3 hour rending.

Not too shabby if I say so myself. I really enjoyed doing these, and wish I could spend more time on them. Maybe this will be my symposium piece...

Word Count: 193