Red Bird of Paradise from Raja Ampat Islands

Birdwatchers who go to West Papua always want to see birds of paradise. There are 41 species known to science. They are scattered from north Maluku, to New Guinea and northern Australia. There are 37 species that live in New Guinea. One of them is Red Bird of Paradise (Paradisaea rubra). This bird lives in Waigeo, Batanta, and Gam islands of Raja Ampat regency.

Colored-pencil sketch of Red Bird of Paradise (Paradisaea rubra)
from the jungle of Waigeo island

As a tourist guide, I have organized birding and hiking tours to forest areas in West Papua province, particularly to Arfak mountains of Manokwari, Klasow valley of Sorong regency and Waigeo island of Raja Ampat. The red bird of paradise can be watched in Waigeo island particularly at the bank of Mamdifu river. Visitors need to stay in tents in the jungle for 1 night in order to watch the paradise birds early in the morning at 06.00 until 09.00. There also other birds that can be watched in the jungle such as Papuan Hornbill (Rhyticeros plicatus), Pink-spotted Fruit Dove (Ptilinopus perlatus), and a lot more.
After the birding tour in Raja Ampat, I usually continue the birding trip to Klasow valley in Sorong regency where visitors can watch Lesser Birds of Paradise (Paradisaea minor), King Bird of Paradise (Cicinnurus regius), Northern Cassowary and many other birds that live in tropical rainforest of West Papua. If you are interested in birding tour, please, contact me Charles Roring by email to: peace4wp@gmail.com or send whatsapp message to my number +6281332245180.

Drawing Feet

I return to the basics of figure drawing - practice, practice and more practice. This time parts of human body that attract my attention are feet. They are located at the lowest part of our body but they are quite difficult to draw. I have created several pencil drawing of feet on different positions or poses. The other parts of the body are not included because they are not my focus of attention now.

Drawing Human Feet

I also apply different pressure on the pencil strokes to create shades and hatchings so that the feet look more natural. I still make mistakes in drawing the toes particularly if some of them are slightly twisted. Our toes will not look normal if we use tight shoes every day. So, the shapes of our toes are determined by how frequent or how long we wear shoes.
I also make a small drawing of a lady at the bottom right corner of the sketch to compare the size of her feet and the length of her legs with the length of her arms and whole body.
This female figure is only an example of drawing exercise that I make to improve my understanding and skills in sketching human body. The proportions of legs have to be balanced with the sizes of head, arms, chest and stomach as well as hips.
Well, I will make more drawings of human figures beside drawings of flowers, birds, and other animals for this blog.

Also read:

• Drawing of Clothed Female Figure
• Figure Drawing of Cross-legged Sitting Lady

Figure Drawing Cross-legged Nude Sitting

Female Figure on Cross-legged Sitting Position

Drawing female human figure in sitting position is quite challenging particularly on the proportions of the legs compared to her whole body. I have just completed this sketch today. I only used my 2B Staedtler Mars Lumograph and Winsor & Newton A5 sketchbook. My hands are rather stiff after not practicing for several months. I need to get used to drawing on paper again after using tablet as my drawing media for sometime. The feel of holding a stylus and a pencil is totally different. Also the smoothness of the glass surface of a drawing tablet such as my Samsung Galaxy Tab A is totally different from paper.
Although I now use tablet more for drawing flowers or fish and birds, I still like drawing on paper especially for human figure. It gives me full control of what I will create out of just a piece of pencil or charcoal stick.

Cross-legged Female Figure in Sitting Position

For me, pencil strokes are more natural for drawing human figure than stylus ones. After finishing my sketch, I continued the work by coloring it. I used Derwent Watercolor pencils and applied moderate strokes to create hatching on shaded area of the female figure. The colors that I used were Ivory Black 67, Golden Brown 59, Deep Chrome 9, Bronze 52 and Raw Sienna 58, and Mineral Green 45.
The next drawing is the result of the coloring works.
The artwork is now available in my redbubble store, printed on various products such as cell phone wallet, tote bags, clocks or studio pouch. If you are interested in buying some of these products, just click the above pictures.

Seashells Drawing

There is one drawing that I haven't uploaded into this blog. It is mu old drawing of seashells. I got the sea shells from a beach outside my town. I drew it first using standard 2B Staedler pencil and then darkened some of its lines using ink pen. Seashells are the houses of invertebrate marine animals called molluscs.
There are a lot of kinds of seashells with a large varieties of color combination. We could see them if we walk along a tropical white sandy beach.
Some species of the molluscs are edible. There are also seashells that are cultivated for pearl production.

Seashell Drawing is now available at Redbubble Store

This seashell drawing is now available as printed products in Redbubble, you could buy pillow, cell phone cases, bags, studio pouch that have got prints of these seashells. To buy them, just click the above picture.

Black-capped Lory

Black-capped Lory (Lorius lory) lives in the jungle of New Guinea and its surrounding islands. I saw this bird when I was traveling to Waigeo island in Raja Ampat archipelago. The bird has got beautiful red, blue, black and green colors. It also has got orange bill with some yellow feather in its tail.
Because of its beautiful colour, a lot of people catch the birds and sell them to big cities in Indonesia. I feel sad every time I see bird in a cage. I prefer watching birds in their own habitat to watching them in cages and in the market.

Black-capped Lory is now available in Redbubble store

Black-capped Lory (Lorius lory) T-Shirt
by tropicalart

As a tour guide, I have guided hundreds of tourists who want to go birding in West Papua particularly in the rainforest of Sorong regency, Arfak mountains or even to Raja Ampat islands. I provide 10x42 mm binoculars and spotting scopes to enhance the birding experience of my guests. Birds are usually active in the mornings and in the afternoons before sunset.
If you are interested in having birdwatching tour with me in the jungle of West Papua, you could contact me by email to: peace4wp@gmail.com or whatsapp: +6281332245180.
Artworks
To create awareness among all of us about the importance of protecting animals, I have just created a drawing of this Black-capped Lory as shown above.
Instead of using coloured pencil or pastel sticks and paper, I used S-pen stylus and the glass screen of Samsung Tab A tablet as my media. So, it is a digital drawing. The principles of drawing are relatively similar. However, I feel that the glass surface of tablet is so flat and slippery. I have to be more careful in drawing lines. The use of digital eraser, the ease of setting brush sizes and colors as well as the superimposition of lines make the digital drawing process faster. Sketching, colouring, hatching are done simultaneously. But I still do manual drawing using pencil and paper regularly.
I hope that you like this bird drawing. Don't forget support this blog by buying some of my other artworks that I made available in my zazzle store at the following links:

T-Shirt

Paradise Birds in Watercolor
by tropicalart

Also read:

• Sketch of Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
• Sketch of Male Lesser Birds of Paradise

White Cockatoo

This is a simple sketch of Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) that I saw in the jungle of West Papua when I guided tourists from The United Kingdom. Local people call it Kakaktua Putih (meaning White Cockatoo) or Buring Yakop (Jacop bird).

Cockatoo like to sit on the branches of a tree early in the morning when they have just woken up. They flap their wings, move or climb to higher branch and make screeching sounds. When one of them flies, they others will follow and together they will make noisy sounds in the sky.
It is not only cockatoo that I and the tourists saw while walking in the jungle. we also saw Papuan hornbills (Rhyticeros plicatus), Eclectus Parrot (Eclectus rotatus), Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus), and Willie Wagtail.
If you like birdwatching, seeing beautiful nature and are interested in making sketches or taking pictures of birds, butterflies, flowers and the surrounding scenery while traveling, you can contact me to be your guide and sketching mate. This is my e-mail: leororing@gmail.com
Artworks:
Please, support this blog buy buying one of my other artworks in zazzle store below:

Butterfly Drinking Nectar Button
by tropicalart

dolphins-color large tote bag
by tropicalart

Also read:

• Papuan Hornbills
• Northern Cassowary

Reclining Nude Girl in Digital Colors

When drawing human figure, I like to use pencil and paper. But I like to try new things such as using tablet and stylus. I have made digital artworks of hibiscus and grass flowers. The process is very similar to using pencil and paper. However, I consider drawing or sketching on flat glass screen of a tablet is more difficult. The sizes of my Samsung Galaxy Tab A and its stylus are quite small. I also have to adapt myself with the hard glass surface of my tablet that is slippery.
With a lot of efforts, trial and error, I created the following Reclining Nude Girl with digital colors.
The drawing is not perfect. I need more practice to make my drawings look more attractive.
If you want to give any comments or suggestions, just send your message to my email: leororing@gmail.com. You could also use whatsapp to: +6281332245180.

Wooden Jetty of Anggrem harbour in Manokwari town

Also read:

• Arm Wrestling
• Charcoal Sketch of a Lady

Bush Flowers from the Jungle of West Papua

Here are small flowers that I saw in the bush while walking with some European tourists in the jungle. As a tourist guide, I often run rainforest tours for visitors who are interested in seeing flowers, butterflies, birds, beetles, and unique plants.

Bush Flowers from in the forest of West Papua

The duration of the rainforest tours is between 3 to 4 days with visitors staying in tents or huts in the jungle. The most favorite destination for tourists is Klasow valley located in the east of Sorong regency. There are wild flowers in the jungle, especially orchids, but there are also flowers that were planted by the villagers.

Visitors can watch birds such as sulphur crested cockatoo, Lesser Birds of Paradise (Paradisaea minor), Pinon Imperial Pigeon (Ducula pinon) hornbills (Rhyticeros plicatus), Large Fig Parrot, and a lot more.
At night, visitors can join with me on a night walk to see wallaby. It is a kind of kangaroo but has got smaller body.

Rainforest Flower Framed Art Print

In addition to birds and wallaby, the tropical rainforest of Klasow valley is the natural habitat of a lot of species of butterflies, some that I know are Blue Mountain Swallowtail (Papilio ulysses), Meadow Argus (Junonia villida), and Cruiser Butterfly (Vindula arsinoe) and Birdwing butterfly (Ornithoptera priamus).

If you are interested in taking rainforest tour in Klasow valley and need me as your guide, please, contact me by email to: peace4wp@gmail.com.

I will be happy to organize your trip and guide you into the jungle.

Digital Illustration of Rainforest Flower

I often go to the rainforest in West Papua to guide tourists for 3 to 5 days to watch birds and other wild animals. I also saw various species tropical rainforest flowers which I could not identify their species names. One of them is shown below.

I created the digital illustration of the flower using Freehand MX, a vector drawing software from Macromedia which is now in the hands of Adobe. Unfortunately, it not updated anymore.
I use Inkscape to create my vector illustration. It is powerful and free. But now I prefer to create digital artworks on my Samsung Galaxy Tab A with Sketchbook Pro as choice for drawing application.
You could by my artwork above in the form of silver plated necklace, teapot, keychain, t-shirt or mugs by clicking the following product links:

Tropical Rainforest Flower Silver Plated Necklace
by tropicalart

Tropical Rainforest Flower
by tropicalart

Purple Flower

I have just finished my newest drawing tonight about two purple flowers that I often saw while walking around my neighborhood. Because their sizes are small, they are not considered as important as roses whose plants are higher.
People here may also consider this flower plant as grass.
However, I believe that they are so beautiful especially if I make a drawing of the flowers using my Samsung Tab A with S-pen. I used Autodesk Sketchbook to make it. I am happy to see the result. I hope that you also like this digital artwork.
Well, I often see the flowers when I guide European and American tourists in the jungle of Tambrauw mountains. During the tour, we see birds such as sulphur crested cockatoo, hornbills, frigate birds, eclectus parrot. We see unique bush flowers, orchids and plants of the tropical forest. We also swim in the fresh water river and build tents deep in the jungle.
I still do not know the species name of this flower plant. If you know it, please, contact me by e-mail to: peace4wp@gmail.com. Or if you are interested in taking rainforest tour in West Papua, particularly in Arfak mountains, Tambrauw mountains or Klasow valley, you can also send email me.
If you like the flowers, you could buy them in my zazzle store as a T-shirt by clicking the following link:

Purple Grass Flowers T-Shirt
by tropicalart