My reference for this small painting was a photograph given to me by an elderly neighbour who loved taking pictures of garden birds. I shall be giving this as a gift to a lady who is 90 years young today.
Tag Archives: bird painting
New #Bird #Painting – House #Sparrows
#Goshawk #Kestrel & #Harris’ #Hawk
Another selection of beautiful birds of prey. The American Kestrel will land on your head.
The action shots are out of focus but still valuable reference material.
The Goshawk was the biggest of the hawks.
American Kestrel
American Kestrel
Harris’ Hawk
Goshawk
Peregrine cross
Noisy Goshawk
#Cranes & #Terns Chinese Style (#Painting!)
My first attempts at using a Chinese Brush in the traditional manner.
#Rook & #Wagtail
Sandwich hunter Rook from Dartmoor.
Stumpy the Pied Wagtail, who takes half-board at the Hengrove Park Leisure Centre.
Dartmoor #Rook Painting
Rooks hang around the parking spots on Dartmoor, making cheeky chirpy noises at the visitors in the hope of some sandwich crumbs….
Bird Feeder : Peanuts for the Great Tit
I wonder often how to anchor my art ideas down. There is so much to choose from when it comes to making a picture .But at the start of this year my paint sketches have the anchor that is my own experience in a given day.
I set up a lovely looking bird feeding stand in the summer, only to solemnly and regularly dump the rejected rotting food in the bin for a fresh supply in the hope that at some point the local bird community might regard my garden as an OK place to feast on sunflower heart seeds, niger seeds, suet balls, and peanuts, it has all been there with no takers.
Finally as the weather cooled to winter some birds have found the bird food acceptable. Although it all still seems a bit sporadic.
The Great Tit has been to the feeder in the tree, so here is a quick painting sketch of a Great Tit to complement my success.
Day of Play #Harris’s #Hawk
Some people say Worcester Sauce when they should say Worcestershire Sauce, some people say Harris Hawk when they should call this bird a Harris’s hawk and has something to do with it being named after an ornithologist called, yes you guessed, Harris.
This was my final painting of my Day of Play using texture in the body of the bird.
Day Of Play #Penguin #Painting
This painting was on cartridge paper which is not as satisfying a using watercolour paper. Still it was good to test out the shapes, colour and composition.
A Day of Play #Falcon #Painting
Attempt number two for the day …more textures and layers on this Hobby, an aerialist falcon taking its prey on the wing.
A Day of Play #Peacock #Painting
Playing with paint sounds like fun but for me it usually ends with frustration, perhaps because I am not really concentrating or taking it seriously and I finish up with a number of sketchy paintings which I really do not like. I have taught myself to try to ignore this feeling as the act of being undisciplined and attempting to have fun leads to discovering new ways of doing things. So today I have been having some “fun” with textures.
Painting, not Cut-Outs for Me.
Despite the fact that I live in a smallish town in the Cotswolds UK there is a significant population of artists. I nearly said thriving artists. They are thriving as far as their art might be concerned but I doubt that they are thriving as far as their contribution to their cost of living. There just has to be another job in the mix to enable most artists to “indulge” themselves their creativity. I digress…..
Stroud in the Cotswold Hills (UK) is a town of artists and creativity, music and alternative therapies, alternative remedies and alternative people. We have Open Art Studios in May and festivals of Music in the Summer and all sorts in between. Our Museum is the best ever for a small town, and within the same building is an exibition room which celebrates art of all varieties. We are lucky enough that the local Museum is currently hosting a selection of art from Matisse. Cut-outs (collage shapes cut with a scissors) was Matisse’ form of art which he made during the 1950’s.
Matisse Lithograph
To be honest, this work which must have been quite a revelation in that era does not do alot for me. But it must have been quite a development for that time and the evolution of different creative expressions have enabled us to have the freedom to create across all sorts of media and mix them up too, the ultimate in this being Mixed Media.
Still, even if Matisse is not your bag it is good to be in the presence of original art and have feelings toward different styles and media from the art world. You might want to buy only what you like, but witnessing and processing what art history and contemporary art has to offer will help develop your own view about your art and your art process and where it sits on the spectrum of creative expression.
My artist friend here is using her creative expression to mimic the art!
Diane Young Artist 