Pen sketch on back of an envelope - click to expand, download and add a wash.

Pen sketch illustrating cross hatching

Really just a doodle. We have a nest of blackbirds, from which some fully grown youngsters are hanging around. Though fully grown they are dependent on their parents, especially the male to collect food for them. Here are two, one on the wall and one on the stump. The one on the wall will run from one end to the other, and then back. This is just a doodle really using a black biro pen, nothing special yet it satisfies the " sketch a day " need in me. Cross hatching can be very effective and has visual links with many forms of art printing. The sketch could be colour washed, especially if it was on better paper, though sometimes less is more as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe would expound regarding minimalist design, though the term was originally used by poet Robert Browning in his 1855 poem "Andrea del Sarto, called 'The Faultless Painter'" ... which seems more appropriate.