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On Saturday my mum and I visited the WWT reserve in Barnes, West London. It was a beautiful sunny day, and perfect for watching all the lovely wildlife there. My favourite wildfowl there were the Eider Ducks, and these colourful Red-Breasted Geese. They were lit up by the late afternoon sun, and just crying out to be painted!This was quite an ambitious image for me to paint in watercolour. Water is one of the trickiest things to paint, especially when coupled with reflections. I took inspiration from Lars Johnson's watercolours of wildfowl. He uses simple loose brushstrokes on wet washes to produce a loose impression of the bird in the water. He also uses the white of the paper to illuminate the subject. I have a habit of covering even the white parts of my subjects with colour, so I wanted to try this method instead. I am quite pleased with this image as it is my first painting since the summer!
The red, black and white of these birds make a lovely contrast, and I will probably re-visit them again to paint, but first I am going to try some Eiders.
Whilst visiting Wiltshire with my boyfriend last weekend, we walked past a farm and saw this weird but wonderful cockerel. This breed of chicken is called a 'Poland'. It's most eye-catching feature is the fantastic hairdo, which reminds me of David Bowie's character Jareth from the film Labyrinth (if you haven't seen this film already, watch it, it's amazing!).
Unfortunately the feathers over his eyes seemed to completely obscure his vision. Every time the wind blew and the leaves rustled, it ran around erratically not knowing what on earth was going on! However, I just had to paint him. I had to paint him in sections, otherwise the different reds and browns would have blended into each other. Looking at this painting has made me realise that I really need to do something with my backgrounds. I need to introduce more colour around the subject, instead of just a small area at it's feet. I think this will have to be my project going forward.
Working in a school means that I luckily get some time off over the summer holiday period. I am using this time to get back into the swing of painting.
Today I focused on this small study of a Welsummer cockerel and hens. As it is a small study, I wanted to be be as loose as possible with my style. This is easier said than done! I couldn't help adding the little details such as the little grass stems and feather flecks.
What I like about this painting is that I have captured the 'action'. Cockerels are very attentive of their ladies. If they find a titbit on the ground, they will cluck excitedly. The hens will run over and grab the food, and the cockerel will sidle up to them, asserting his dominance.
Welsummers are my favourite chickens to paint. Their colouring is stunning, and a wonderful challenge for watercolours.
I have had a rather long break from painting over the Christmas holiday. I was away from home for most of it and so there was no opportunity for me to focus on putting paintbrush to paper.
However after a few practice sketches to help me get back into the swing of things, I have produced this little number.
Waxwings are one of the most spectacular winter visitors to our shores. Their lovely creamy pink feathers, punky crest and black eye mask make a striking image. There have been huge flocks spotted all over the UK, and a retail park in Folkestone, Kent was lucky enough to have a flock of nearly 400 visit its car park. It did not take long for them to devour all the berries on offer!
It was not easy trying to get the colouring of this bird correct. The main colour is a mix of pink, cream, blue-grey and orange! I layered all the different colours over one another, using more 'paynes grey' in the shadows around the feet. I think I am most happy with the head of the bird. The flash of orange next to the beak, and the crisp red of the berries make a lovely contrast. I will probably do a few studies of these Waxwings, as I find their colours and characters to be very interesting.
Here is my first completed entry for the David Shepherd 2011 competition. Big cats, including Snow Leopards, are quite popular subjects in this competition. It was an Amur Leopard that got me through to the finals last time so I thought I would focus on a similarly endangered species.
This was a very difficult image to initially sketch out. The face of the cub especially, took a good few hours to get right. The other challenge was to create the 'fluffy' look of the fur. These leopards have incredibly dense fur to keep out the cold, and this is what differentiates them from other big cats. To recreate the fluffy look, I simply flicked the black and cream colours onto the paper. I also outlined the form of the leopards with white ink. I kept the background simple, as these cats live in snow covered mountains. A wash of paynes grey and more flicks of black completed the picture.
I want to enter two paintings, and so this weekend I will set to work on either a Scarlet of Hyacinth Macaw. These will be perfect subjects for the 'Endangered' category.
On Saturday my mum and I visited the WWT reserve in Barnes, West London. It was a beautiful sunny day, and perfect for watching all the lovely wildlife there. My favourite wildfowl there were the Eider Ducks, and these colourful Red-Breasted Geese. They were lit up by the late afternoon sun, and just crying out to be painted!
