Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Spirit Birds?


This is about the strangest location painting you will see, its done standing just outside the back door looking straight up at the condo. It was a mundane scene until two birds soared silently up in the sky, illuminated from the city lights below. One window had its lights on, which suggests the only light source. On the condo wall you see the massive vine covering a good portion of the building, and there is a tree off to the left of the scene, almost black against the maroon and blue sky. The sky colour is a mix of pyrol orange (PO73) and indo blue (PB60), with increasing amounts of the blue towards the top of the picture. The stars and birds are created with careful brush work (I picked up a new Holbein #6 at the art shop last weekend). The clincher is the condo itself and the column of beige brick, and windows, that lead the eye upwards and produces the illusion of looking upwards. To get the perspective correct I held the brush up and used it to judge the angles. Finally, I had a head lamp on to be able to judge the colours and values correctly. Did I imagine these birds? Was it a dream? or did I really see two spirit birds fly by on this night?

Spirit Birds? watercolour 5 x 7" 80lb, June 2024 (No. 3779)

No comments:

Post a Comment