January is for the birds!

After a very gratifyingly busy Christmas (both family and a large design project), I admit to feeling a little unprepared for my first classes this week. Mostly because I did not have much opportunity to paint...

I was looking out the window, though, one very cold morning, watching the chickadees and blue jays at the feeder and wondering how they survive these -20 something temperatures, and so happily! Chirping about, taking turns at filling up. That's it, I thought, let's take a re-look at painting our little bird paintings on a black background. We have done it before, it is fun and relaxing - a nice way to ease ourselves back in to painting.

And fun it was. The process is to draw in white pencil on the small (4x4 and 6x6) black-gessoed mdf boards prepared by husband Tom. The background is painted next, painting only the negative shapes and leaving the bird and major branches in black. This is exciting and really establishes the 'design'. Next, the branches are developed, and then the bird, Thinner paint applications work well to create shadowed areas, with stronger or built-up applications of paint for the brighter areas. Most students were able to create 2 paintings on Wednesday evening. Owls, as you can see, were a popular choice!