Step by Step Painting of a Pileated Woodpecker

This painting began as a demonstration for a workshop on  painting trees.  My idea was to have a large flying pileated  woodpecker anchored by a dramatic array of limbs with background branches creating a sense of depth.  In the first step I’m deciding on the dominate color, greens mixed using Naples yellow, and the position of the bird.

In the second step I added the dominant branch to anchor the bird.

Here a companion second branch is added.

In Step 4 some darker foliage areas were laid in with splashes as well as a few background limbs. This is as far as I got during the workshop afternoon.

Later, I decided to redraw the bird. I wiped out the initial drawing and worked out the pose more carefully. Here the drawing on tracing paper is positioned on the canvas.

In Step 6 the new bird is painted in.  I still need to refine the foliage and add details (and photograph this under better light) . From here on in it is pretty slow going but I’ll post the finished painting when it is completed.