Welcome back! I’ve been away for a while handling life’s snowballs as they come my direction.
I’ve made a lot more progress on the painting. It’s done now and on its way to the mail! I’ll step through the last stages.
So, this is where I left off:
So for the below image, I added details mostly to the flowers, leaves, and some on the chest of the finch. I really leaned into mixing the ochres, earthy greens, and delicate pinks to create a sense of depth and shine that is hard to do without multiple layers. Artist tip: if you mix two complimentary colors together, you will get a shadow color that will look much more natural than using a black or gray, as it doesn’t desaturate the colors.
And because I wanted to get it knocked out, below is the finished piece. I spent a little more time on the details of the flowers and leaves, but most of my focus was on the intricate patterning of the bird’s chest, which is very textural and detailed. In case you are wondering why there is a touch of color on the base of the bird’s chest, it’s just light bouncing off the leaves and petals onto the bird, creating color pools on the feathers before that light is bounced towards our eyes to see it and the bird. I call it “color pooling”.
All told, this piece took me around a week and a half to paint, several hours most days. I couldn’t be happier with the results! I hope you enjoy the piece as well!