Social Harmony

 

Social Harmony, 14.5" X 23", original oil

Sociable Weaver nest cont'd

 For the sunlit side of the nest on the left side of the vertical branch I used some of the deep orange for the shadows and a mixture with naples yellow and cadmium yellow deep for the highlights.

 

    While I could use a bit of freedom in creating the nest, detail needs to be painted for the structure of the supporting branches before I can add in the greenery.  Without compromising the careful balance created by the birds in crafting their architectural wonder, I have "moved" and modified some of the outlying branches for a better balance in the painting.

Above is a detail photo of the first perched sociable weaver for the painting. I decided to have five birds in the piece. Four are perched and one is flying. I could have painted dozens or just one. When I was fleshing out the composition, I tried numerous positions and placements and the five seemed to work the best.

Sociable Weavers

   It has been a while since I have posted. My apologies. My brush has been busy and I will be sharing those paintings from start to finish.

  Sociable weavers are master builders. Living in congregate groups, their massive nests are impressive in large trees and are unbelievable when suspended in smaller ones. A particular nest in the Namib Desert of Namibia caught my eye for its miracle of engineering.

   With some editing and some strategic placing of some of the birds I was ready to start on the painting.

   One often thinks of a desert as a yellow mass of sand. The Namib Desert, considered by some to be the oldest desert on earth, is filled with color. Its age has contributed to the oxidation of iron in the sand. The color of the sand in sunlight is a warm orange and in the shadows it is a stunning blueish purple.

 

   The nest had sticks and birds everywhere. The trick was to capture the texture of the nest without painting every twig. On my palette I mixed four different colors for the rusty orange nest on the right side of the vertical branch. Using a small flat angled brush I started at the bottom.

   To give the nest that layered feeling and reflect the weathered condition of the outermost layer, some of the upper part of the nest was painted with splashes of the cooler background color.

 

Finished and scanned

 

Squabble    Original Oil    16" X 24"

 It has been a while since I posted. For this piece, I wanted to wait until I could scan the painting. My camera was not catching some of the nuances which my scanner was able to capture.

Much of the "pink" was painted with a mixture containing Michael Harding Crimson Lake. I have been having fun exploring my "new" oil colors from both Michael Harding and Richeson. Though many of my choices could be created from my Rembrandt standard palette, I am playing around with bolder selections of color.

 

Starting the birds

 

For this piece, I decided to start on the heads first rather than completing a bird and moving on to the next.

Water

 

I like to block in the larger sections of water before paintings the highlights. This way the lighter paint can blend in to the wet darker sections.

Quick phone photos.

Heading to Florida - Virtually

 It has been snowing on and off at our home for several days so I thought a "painting visit" to Florida was in order. 

home with 8+ inches, photo by Linda, 2/17/2021

 

Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island, Florida is a wonderful spot to see wading birds. One of my favorite, the roseate spoonbill, will be featured in this piece.

I start with the mangrove. One could paint every branch and leaf but that would distract from the birds. Much of what I am painting is the suggestion of the foliage.