Blackbird Painting Finished

"Who Ya Callin' Yella?"  7" x 5" acrylic on canvas board

It's done! And on time, too. I hope to post some pictures of the exhibit soon. My husband came up with the name for this piece, playing off the bird's brilliant colors and their territorial nature. He also found this frame. What a great guy!

WIP - Yellow-headed Blackbird

Ahh, the beginning of a painting. There's so much potential at this stage.

 

 

 

 

  

I'm entering a piece in a miniature show and the painting is due by the weekend so no more time to procrastinate! As usual, I'm trying to find a happy medium between my tendency to be overly detailed and my desire to be more painterly. We'll see how it goes. The painting is acrylic on a 7" x 5" canvas board.

I'm pleased with my chosen color palette, but I feel like the bird and the cattail need a little more oomph.

It always amazes me how just a few brush strokes can make such a difference. This is the point where I began to really like the cattail but felt that something wasn't right with the proportions of the bird's body.

I'm now at the awkward painting stage where one doesn't know if it's time to start all over again or if things will turn out okay in the end. I find it best to step away from the easel at this point, but I can't step away for too long. Stay tuned as I paint down to the wire. And then I still have to find a frame!

Painting 28 - B is for Blackbird

Taa-daa! Still working the kinks out with the lettering, but I am loving this! I used an X-acto knife to scrape away the paint to create the fluff on the cattail. I have also discovered that painters tape - the colored stuff you use to protect moldings and create a clean edge when you are painting walls - works very well to preserve the edges around these watercolor pieces, too. Go figure.

You may remember the quick sketch I did of this bird a few months ago - I used the same pose for this piece. It makes such a difference having my own reference photos! The avocet in the previous painting was a made-up pose based on a bunch of different photos from various sources and I think it showed. So from now on I'm going to try to choose birds that I have good photos of. It makes such a difference. Hmm, I wonder what I've got in my photo collection for "C"...

I do find that the imperfections in the lettering attract my attention away from the piece as a whole though, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should skip painting the lettering by hand and just do it digitally. (Please let me know YOUR opinion on whether I should go with digital or handpainted lettering or even include any lettering at all, in the comments section. Thanks!!! )

These ABC pieces take a lot of time and planning, so the paintings are not materializing as quickly as they were before and I have fallen behind in my 100 Paintings Challenge. I am thrilled with the series, but I'm not about to abandon the Challenge. And this is still quite a ways in the future, but I'm also wondering what I am going to do for the letters "X" and "Z"!