It Wasn't Me

A few steps into this heartwarming scene of a female chickadee who has seemingly caught her better half after a long night with some other birds (and some bees of the night)...

New blog!

I'm going to refrain from putting any more paintings (my obsessive hobby these days) on this blog. I'd like to get this back to more character design. So, with that, if you miss the paintings, they're going to this new blog, Big Man on Canvas. Be the first to follow it!

This is the Honey Badger*

*Not really. It's a "Tody Bird." Very tropical and colorful, so I cranked on this and logged in starts to finish here.

Starting with an IPad sketch, I got a good feeling for the placement.

Started with red, always a subtle warming trick.

Went dark in the background first, knowing it would go brighter later.

Nothing helps a silhouette better, than a silhouette.

Tried not to overdo the colors, hard with this guy.

Three's A Crowd

Spring birds on a limb, wire, whatever. Played with this layout in the IPad...

...here, first.

Then began with a layer of umber to help with any reveal of branches later on.

Tried to keep only with the knife throughout.

In the end I still grabbed for some traditional tools.

Egret

A quick commission job here, but again with my birds...there's got to be something psychologically disturbing going on with the need to do birds. Guess it could be worse...24" X 28" acrylic.

Robin

Another in the birds/nest/eggs series I guess. This being a robin, so another spring-type bird enjoying some weather that's a heck of a lot warmer than what we've been going through recently!

After a rough pencil, I added some layers of acrylic molding paste to make certain parts pop off with some dimension.

A tight shot of the big-headed guy...

And the final, a tall piece, somewhat. It's also here on Etsy.

Woodpecker

Saw one of these the other day - loved how it's red-head popped of the gray, dreary landscape. Almost wrecked while staring at him/her. But thought putting it on canvas might be a safer option - at least I was off the road for the afternoon. It's also on Etsy.