Screech Owl
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Recently I have heard two stories involving screech owls so I know they are around our suburban neighborhood, but so far I haven’t had any luck spotting one here. I’ve been looking hard and thinking about screech owls and hope that by painting one I might be able to spot one near by. Here is a 12″ x 12″ watercolor study of a screech owl on canvas. I painted him patterned like the bark and a bit hard to spot.
When I left the Pileated Woodpecker painting in the last blog post I had the bird and anchoring trunk worked out but needed to get in some dark foliage shapes. Because these birds are often found in pine forests I wanted to work out a dark pattern in the upper left corner which might suggest pine needles. In the lower left quadrant I wanted to suggest ground shrubbery.
I became unhappy with the horizontal branch in the lower part of the painting and decided to bring the viewer through the painting with some delicate splatters instead. I wiped out the branch and also wiped out a light pathway zigzagging through the foreground. This painting here is nearly done; the final version is posted on this website.
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.
As a somewhat regular feature on my blog, I’d like to start showing collections of paintings that feature the same kind of bird. This week I would like to feature a few hummingbird watercolor paintings that I’ve created. Hummingbirds are pretty common where I live in California, which is why they’ve made appearances in many of my paintings. What I find very interesting about any painter’s work is how their style gradually evolves and changes over time. By grouping paintings of hummingbirds together I was able to spot subtle changes in my style throughout the last three years. Can you spot them too?
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- Anna’s Hummingbird | 2009
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- Hummingbird in Flight | 2009
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- Hummingbird on Branch | 2009
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- Iridescent Hummingbird | 2009
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- Sepia Hummingbird | 2008
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- Solitary Hummingbird | 2007
If you’d like to see more groupings of my paintings that feature the same kind of bird, here are a few more galleries to look at:
Blue Heron watercolor paintings
Goldfinch watercolor paintings
I hope you enjoy!
I’m honored to say that my original watercolor painting of a Cooper’s Hawk has been featured in the latest edition of Splash 11, New Directions, The Best of Watercolor.
Cooper's Hawk
“I love to throw paint around. With sumi-e line work, splashes and dribbles become branches and foliage; with the proper surface, birds can be added in as well. My challenge has been to find a surface where I can lift out a bird shape after allowing a design of texture and lines to evolve. I had found paper coated with gesso to be the best solution. Recently, through, it occurred to me that canvas coasted with gesso would give me a similar surface on which to work. Cooper’s Hawk is one of my first attempts to paint a large watercolor work on canvas. I stretched medium-weave canvas, primed it with three coats of gesso and sealed the finished work with an archival aerosol varnish.”
My painting is featured on page 134. Splash 11, New Directions, The Best of Watercolor can be purchased online at the North Light Shop.
Finch Feast
I’m excited to share with you the two books currently available that feature my watercolor artwork.
Sweet Reverence of Little Birds is a project I worked on with Patricia J. Machmiller, an award-winning haiku poet and Martha Dahlen, calligrapher. The book is a compilation of 20 watercolor paintings depicting native California birds, paired with haiku presented in calligraphy. The paintings are done in a style reminiscent of Asian brush painting. These books are available online or at the East West Bookstore in Mountain View.
Travelling Conversations is a project that I worked on with Elaine Frenett and Jean Warren. This book encapsulates a personal project whereby Jean, Elaine and myself would communicate via the art of watercolor through a travelling sketchbook. The book pictorially captures our lives from 2005 through 2010 and features over 60 pieces of original art. This book is a companion piece to the July 2010 show this body of work at Viewpoints gallery in Los Altos. This book is available online or at Viewpoints Gallery in Los Altos.
Watercolor Paintings
