Ol’ Dead Eye

Who, do you ask, is ‘Ol’ dead eye’? Well let me tell you.

You see, ‘Ol’ dead eye’ is not a new piece of mine. On the contrary. It’s actually quite an old item. I’m not entirely sure how old, but I reckon 10-12 years old. That means I was probably still an adult when I drew it so in some ways there’s no excuse. For this is ‘Ol’ dead eye’:

Just look at that cold, black, dead eye. The piece takes pride of place on my great aunt’s wall and every single time I visit her, my eyes are drawn to it and I despair. Don’t tell her this, but I know I rushed this robin and you can really tell, regardless of the dead eye. I used pencil and I had no idea then about layers. Pencils take hours to build layers up and it ain’t about pressing down harder. No, you have to put the time into it. 

That’s part of the explanation for the dead eye, but the other side of the story is that, since I drew this, I’ve learned to actually look. And when you actually look at a photo of a robin, or a robin in real life, you notice that light reflects off its eye. It isn’t a singular, perfectly round white spot. It’s more complicated than that.

So with my Auntie Joan’s 91st birthday fast approaching in April, I decided to create a replacement robin. And, having learnt my lesson with pencils, I chose watercolours – a much quicker medium. 

I of course paid particular attention to the eye, but I didn’t actually start there. Instead, I focused on the base layer for the bright red breast and the beige head and wings first. I added some branches into the picture and paid attention to these too. Florals aren’t my strong point.

After leaving the eye white for quite a long time, I finally took the plunge and started adding some greys before finishing with an almost-black mixture of intense blue and burnt umber. This is always a bit stressful, but I was happy with the subtle reflection of light that brought the robin to life.

Not long after her birthday, I spoke to Auntie Joan to ask what she thought of the picture. She said she really liked it so I explained to her that it’s to replace the awful, dead robin that is on her wall. Her response? “Oh I’m not going to replace that one with this one but I’ll put this one on the wall too”. My partner did suspect that she had a soft spot for ‘Ol’ dead eye’. Turns out he was right!