Monday, April 26, 2010

More Geese




As I said yesterday the quick watercolor sketches I do are sort of like thinking out loud visually. I knew that yesterday's watercolor had many things that I would change if I did a more developed watercolor. So today I began a more developed watercolor.

I'm still experimenting with techniques though so this msy turn into just another preliminary watercolor. Today I laid down some broad washes before starting as an experiment. These may unify the painting coloristically but they also take away white areas, for good! So I ended up going back into this with white gouache. And I still need to use more, especially on the foreground goose.

I do like the lighter color it has so far. Of course I really haven't touched the geese or turtles yet. What I do there may make or break the painting. I held off on this time because I knew how complicated the background would be and wanted to work on it first. This is another new method for me. Only time will tell whether I decide that it's a wise one.

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Tuesday afternoon - The newest version is now at top. It's nearly done. I do need to knock down a couple of the white highlights a bit. But other than that I think I've done all I can do with this. It has been fun experimenting with composition. I'm not sure how I feel about how the color and values worked out. That will take awhile to see. As usual in this type of painting I don't go for great detail in the birds. I want them to be recognizable but don't want them to look like highly detailed cutouts pasted on top of a generalized background.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love your bird paintings. I'm attempting some Canada Geese at the moment. Hope to be as good as you someday.

Ken Januski said...

Hi paintbrushandcanvas. Good luck with your own Canada Geese. Birds are a 'whole new ballgame' as they say when it comes to painting. It's taken my many years to get somewhat comfortable with them. And I THOUGHT I knew them from all my birdwatching.

I stopped by your site briefly and particularly like 'Waiting for the Storm.' Good luck to you.