Painters Online

BIRDS 15 SKETCHING & PAINTINGGUIDE APRIL 2020 www.painters-online.co.uk Paint realistic birds by Quintin J Davies , PaintersOnline gallery member W hile our avian friends are commonly timid and fleeting in nature, their diversity of shape, size, colouration, markings and characters make them interesting and appealing subjects to paint. Setting Placing the bird in an environmental context adds narrative to the piece. Ensure that the background is not too distracting; use soft edges and lighter, less-saturated values compared to foreground elements to give a sense of recession. Lighting Avoid flatness. A low-angle sun direction makes for a more dynamic image adding depth. Form Shape and markings need to be faithful to reference material for the painting to work. Carefully transfer to canvas using a gridding process if necessary. Feathers Apply a base tone using the darkest values for any given area. Work up the feather ‘V’ structure with slightly lighter tones, facing the light source, then add barb details with a highlight tone using a fine Rigger brush. ▲ Puffin , oil on gesso-primed and sanded MDF, 7 x 7in. (18 x 18cm). I needed the puffin to be centre stage in this small portrait. With this bird in particular the habitat was key to achieving the atmosphere I wanted. Note how the background cliffs became progressively de-saturated and poorly defined to show recession, commonly seen on coastlines due to increased atmospheric humidity. ▲ Blue Tit in Reed s, oil on gesso-primed and sanded MDF, 7 x 7in. (18 x 18cm). I used white spirit, variably diluted with raw umber, for the inital tonal underpainting. Colours used were mainly raw umber, French ultramarine and titanium white. Cadmium red and yellow along with chrome yellow were used elsewhere to add saturation, mix the greens and yellow, and as complementary colours to de-saturate some of the blue feathers.