How do you create movement on the canvas?
The girls in my painting group like to work on a common theme or subject. Recently we've been working on cardinals.
I chose this one because of the little gal that's still in flight. I think she's the star of the show here, not the fancy red guy on the bottom rung.
Thanks to my neighbor Mary who takes such good care of her birds. I snapped these photos in her backyard.
Here are some challenges I faced with this one:
1. Combining two photographs and using the best of each.
2. Determining how to create the illusion of seeds without painting a thousand seeds.
3. Making it appear that the wings of the one in flight were moving.
4. Showing the glass of the feeder.
Click "Cardinals at the Bird Feeder" if you'd like to purchase this little painting.
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Did you just make that up?
I don't usually make things up in my paintings. I pretty much paint what I see. Whenever I start making things up, it usually leads to trouble - shadows don't match, proportions are off, colors don't agree... I'm rarely successful with painting from my mind.
I finished this little bird once. It looked just like the photograph... and it looked awful, just wrong... as if I'd made something up.
The snow on the branch was so thick that it looked fake. The blank space around the little cardinal looked unfinished. The angle of the limb didn't make any sense. The little guy had his eyes closed. His back feathers looked drab. So... I took a completely finished and dry painting and started making things up.
- I gave him a little slit of an eye.
- I grew a few little background twigs in front of and behind him.
- I scraped off a couple of inches of show.
- I skinnied up the main branch.
- I added some purple to his dark feathers on top.
Then I signed my name.
It's been a harsh winter here in Northwest Arkansas. We've had some beautiful snows.
Click "Cardinal in Winter" to purchase this little painting.
How long does it take to get rusty?
I haven't been able to paint for a while; sometimes life just gets in the way. Once things slowed down, I found myself putting off getting back to it. When I finally sat down in front of a canvas, it was hard... hard to get it right.
I suppose painting is no different than any other skill; you have to practice to stay in shape.
We have the most wonderful cardinals that splash their red color onto the dreary, wintry landscape behind our house. They flit and play and watch closely for me to come around with my camera so that they can quickly fly away!
One day I was determined to be still long enough to capture them in a few photos. I really wanted to get the male and female together - preferably on a pretty branch posed perfectly, but this was a close as they would get to that.
I'd originally thought it would be neat to paint them on a tall thin canvas like they actually were, but it looked odd. Also I decided to use my license, my artistic license, to give a little more color and a little less twigs to their background.
