Finishing the Cardinals

 I wasn't happy with the flatness on the upper chest of the female. My paint had dried before salt could react on it. So I put another layer of paint on it and used some popcorn salt, and it reacted just fine the second time.

To separate the feathers, use a gray, and with a small brush, outline the feathers, then use water to soften them on the bottom edge. (I made this gray from ultramarine and burnt sienna). 

The eyes: the eyes have a lighter rim around them. If you look very closely, you have the outer rim, a medium brown, then dark black, then white highlight. But since it's so small, I skipped the medium brown, did a black center, then, when dry, added a tiny highlight with gouache or white ink. 

(Hint: you can add these tiny details with black watercolor pencil dipped in water. Sometimes my hands shake too much for tiny details with a brush, and I resort to watercolor pencil for control)

For the red cardinal, add at least another layer of reds, but don't try to go too dark too fast. You are building up layers, so be patient. Use your transparent pyrrol orange to warm up areas that are too cool; use alizarin to cool off areas that might be too warm. Aim for some roundness in the belly area.

On both birds, think of them as being two round balls, a small for the head and a large for the breast area. Think about shading them as you would a ball, only a soft fuzzy one. They will read much better, instead of looking flat. 

Separate the wings in the same manner as the female, only use darker gray or even blue or purple to separate the wing feathers. Pay attention to the roundness and softness of the shoulder, the short feathers next, then the longer flight feathers. Separate the tail feathers. 

Lift any areas that need to be lighter or come forward. 

For the black mask, I wet the area and wet just beyond where I want the black to go. You can make a black or use a tube black or paynes gray. Apply the paint around the beak first, making a nice hard line against the beak. Then gently spread the black to the outer part of the mask, and let the water move the paint into the wet areas. It should create a softer edge where the black and red feathers meet. 

(see the above picture)

For the berries, treat groups as one shape. Underpaint them with coral or transparent pyrrol orange. When they dry, separate shapes with alizarin crimson. For deeper shadows, add some purple to your alizarin. The contrast of the dark and light red shapes will make the berries look more transparent. 

For the leaves, underpaint all with a layer of yellow or green gold. When that dries, use a blue to paint areas that will show bends in the leaves. (shadowed) When that dries, use a darker green to paint over the entire leaf, leaving the very thin middle line of the leaf. (It will show yellow at this point) When dry, use clean water to blush over the leaf, including the line. This will make the middle of the leaf blend in better. If you want to lift some highlights, wait until it is completely dry, and lift a few highlights.

The stem is a color called rose of ultramarine, but you can make it by adding magenta to your purple. Wet the stem, then add the color at the bottom, letting the color rise to the top of the stem. When it dries, make sure the bottom is darker than the top to make it appear round. Also, make the leaves look attached to the stem. You can just wet the bottom of the leaf and drag some of the color into the stem where it attaches. 

If you want to make the female bird's breast feel fuzzier, you can try using small strokes of white pastel pencil or white General's pencil. You can also try stroking some white pastel over areas to emphasize the soft feel. But these things should be done AFTER all the other painting is done.

For blogs about negative painting the leaves, a lesson from a few weeks ago, see below:

beginning the leaf painting

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/8889127726741567536

Finishing leaves, June 2016

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/346643219997373102

some youtubes explaining negative painting

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/3255772476721552502

Cardinal Christmas Card

 Background or no background?

This is the first try for painting cardinals. I was asked why I didn't give it a background. Do all paintings need one? I think it's personal preference and what you want to do with the painting. I want this one to be a simple Christmas card, so didn't put in a background. But....

I originally considered putting in some loose background color. To see if it was something I would like, I did the painting on yupo, adding some light green and red in the background. I also wanted to see if I wanted to move add some berries and change a few things. Yupo was a good, fast way to experiment without ruining a picture at the beginning.

Yupo version:

I decided I liked the drippy background, so put it onto the cold press paper. I just sprayed a little, 

dripped some color on, and moved the paper up and down to move the drips in the direction I wanted. I then began with the female. I did use a tiny bit of masking fluid on the tail and dot on the eye. On the original, I didn't use any miskit.

Colors I used: raw sienna (or quin gold), burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and transparent pyrrol orange. (can use yellow and coral instead.)

I wet the face, crest, and breast of the bird. Wet in wet, I put raw sienna over the head and top of the breast, adding some burnt sienna in the darker part of the head. Sprinkled salt...popcorn salt preferably...onto the top of the breast. Made a gray from the blue and orange, and used that on the lower part  and sides of the breast/belly, very lightly, to create some roundness.

I used transparent pyrrol orange to the tail and wing feathers. (These will get grayer later in the process)

 The beaks are made from yellow and quin coral or transparent pyrrol orange. When they dried, coral was used to separate the top and bottom beaks, and a highlight was lifted from the upper beak. 

This painting is about building up layers. Don't try to get the colors perfect the first layer. It looks better if you can build them up.

Here I added some burnt sienna and orange to the crest and head. When it was dry, I painted the black mask, and then added a little more burnt sienna around the edges to keep the edges soft.

The eyes need to have a small circle around the darkest black of the eye. It isn't white white, but it needs to be lighter than the black of the eye. 

I wanted to get in a base for the red cardinal. He especially needs to be built up in layers, and I want to have time next week to do him right. Colors are cobalt blue (but you can use ultramarine), pyrrol red (or any red or orange red), and alizarin crimson. I wet the body, and used blue on shadow areas: underneath the breast, under the wing, part of the tail, the crest, some on the upper wing. Then I used the warm red on the breast and face and crest, and alizarin on the tail, letting the colors run together. 

Do not try to avoid the black areas. You can easily paint over any color with black. 

On the female bird, I used a little gray (made from blue and orange) on the tail feathers and upper wing. 

Here are the reference photos I used:

photo by Megan Zopf

PMP

Evereau Ozdemir PMP

Goran Hocoel-- PMP

I also want to point out that your birds will look more realistic if you pay just a bit of attention to the wing feathers.  The wings on the cardinals are very much like the bird on the bottom right. The upper shoulder (scapular)  feathers are small and soft, and not individually distinct.  Then there is a layer of small but detailed feathers. Then come the secondary, longer feathers. And last are the long primary flight feathers. The actual back of the bird has tiny feathers that are covered up by the folded wing feathers. 

Hopefully you can see some of these distinctions in the painting below. 

Next week: finishing the details on the birds and the holly.

Batik Adjustments after gluing

 Here are a few more ideas for adjusting your batik, if needed. 

Inktense blocks or pencils/watercolor pencils

Inktense is water soluble, but is bright ink, not watercolor. It acts like a watercolor block or pencil, but after it is activated with water, cannot be lifted or removed. You can use white or lighter colors over darks, which makes it nice for covering mistakes.

Here are some places where I used inktense.

To add some bright reds on some of the petals.

Rubbed on the side of the block with white and green to break up the large dark area underneath the beak.

COLLAGE

You can paint a scrap of the rice paper. Tear it to a shape you want, and use

matte medium to collage it over a shape you want to modify..

 On the picture below 

you can see some light pink areas on the "throat" of the flower. You want to tear it,

not cut it, to make it blend into the paper

WHITE INDIA INK

White ink can be used either to define some lost white areas (used full strength) or

to lighten an area. (wetted down and blended in) In the leaf area on the bottom left,

I wanted it to be lighter and regain the point. I blended in some white ink to accomplish

that. 

Flower after wax removed

After inking the board I mounted on

After all changes and adjustments made.

Other ideas are: adding some pen and ink; using gouache (I don't really like that because It can look chalky); Fluid watercolor over mistakes. 

STUDENT RESULTS

Vicki's 

Vicki used some inktense blocks and a little white ink to recover some edges

and change some of the colors.

Jackie's Cow

(Jackie also used some very vibrant colors for the last wash and had

very little in the way of adjustments at the end)

Making Corrections on a Batik: Method #1

 

Method #1: corrections BEFORE gluing your painting down.

Here is what the Bird of Paradise looked like after all the wax was removed.

I really like it. When I waxed, though, I got a wider line across the "beak" than I wanted. And I wished the leaf looked more green.

Below you see the sheet of watercolor paper that I am going to glue my painting onto as a support.

(This can be your less expensive paper, a canvas board, canvas, or wood painted white)

I traced parts of my original drawing so I know where to glue. I used waterproof ink and painted in parts that I wanted to change: either add more color or define a shape. This process goes very

quickly. I used Posca markers, but you can use anything permanent.

I positioned the painting over those changes, and glued it down on the paper.

(You can use Aleene's glue, or a good glue such as YES paste. I used YES because I want to be able to demonstrate other post-glue processes also)

Now you can see a line of pink across the "beak" of the flower. The leaf is greener. Some of the petals are brighter where I inked some pink or bright yellow. 

Before and after side by side

Starting a new batik: Bird of Paradise

Here is the beginning of the Bird of Paradise in batik. The paper is kinwashi rice paper 25 gsm

Instead of showing all of the map, I'm taking it a step at a time.

In the following picture, I have waxed off everything I want to remain white, and begun to paint yellows where I want them to be. I am also showing how large a brush I am using to PAINT (not wax) the values onto the rice paper. After I got the yellows where I want them to be, I painted in a light value of other colors all around the paper. 

Below shows a map of how I started. The pink represents the whites that were my first wax. The green represents my lightest values, which I waxed off second.

This shows what it looks like after the first values were painted on.

Below you see where I waxed off second and then painted my next darker value. Just for this 

picture, I concentrated on getting the yellows and oranges correct. Yes, the background colors will mix in with the yellows, but it makes a good effect at the end.

TIP: If you have accidentally gone too dark too soon, wax off any shapes that are already 

the value you want them to be. (RE: if you are only on value 3 on your map, but you've made a shape

darker, go ahead and wax it off)

Here is a value map, showing in orange where I will wax off next.

I continued this process until all the values were where I wanted them to be. The last wax is the dark

stem and "beak" underneath the yellow crown. Then I painted the background darker than that.

At this point, I am ready to do the final steps. 

IF YOU DON"T WANT THE BLACK LINES 

skip the following and go to the last step of removing the wax.

IF YOU WANT THE BLACK LINES:

In these steps, you will wax over the entire picture.

Freeze it for a few minutes.

Crackle the wax over a trash can, and brush off all the  crumbs. You should be left with a lot of wax on the paper with lots of cracks in between.

USING A LARGE OLD STIFF BRUSH, 

brush black in between the cracks to get the all-over black lines. You can be picky

about where you put the black. For example, in the picture of the lighthouse, I only

put it over the foreground hill.

REMOVE THE WAX

You will need an iron and LOTS of newspaper.

Make layers of newspaper and sandwich the painting inside.

Iron over the top layer of newspaper until you see the wax saturate the paper.

Use clean newspaper and do the process over again.

Do this until you see no wax bleed through and all the wax is off the painting.

ADHERE THE PAINTING to a white surface. This can be a piece of inexpensive

heavy weight watercolor paper, canvas, cradle board, etc. It needs to be white.

Other blogs about wax batik:

More suggestions about batik

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/3869305270402266049

beginning a simple batik

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/8099915104490737701

VALUES: a preliminary to batik

 I've taught watercolor batik on rice paper before, in my own simplified way. I am, by no means, the expert. I found that the hardest concept for people to grasp is the idea of painting in layers of values, increasing the value each time you paint. Thinking about that, I thought it would be good to do a simple - sort of - picture on regular watercolor paper, increasing the values each time. I chose this photo from paint my photos, photographer Joseph Honings. ("below the old barn")

I made a simplified sketch.

Before doing any painting, I made a photocopy reduced to 60% in size.

I used this reduced size to decide what my values are. This is called a "map"

of my values. The colors are not chosen because they are actually that

value. Each one represents a value, and it is listed to the right in order

from lightest to darkest. The colors are chosen to make it easy for me to see

when to change values.

I decided where I want to have my whites, which will be my first value, and used miskit

to mask them off. Marked in violet/gray.  (You can see the darker areas on stone, which are masking) You could

just paint around those areas if they are large enough.

When you do a batik, those whites will be your first wax. 

Next, I painted the entire page with my lightest value. You could just use a same color throughout, or you could make each layer different colors, AS LONG AS THE VALUE is the same.

After that was dried, I decided which areas I want to stay that light value, and 

painted around them with one value darker. (These are yellow on my map) (See how the waste cans on the right have been left that light value)

Those waste cans would have been your second wax in batik.

I forgot to take a picture of the next value, which left the wood above a lighter value. (those are a greenish yellow on my map)  You would have waxed off the wood except some of the grain, plus anything else that would be that value.

 This is the following step. See how

the side of the brick was left the lighter value, as was the front of the post, some 

items in the back of the barn, and most of the stone. Red on the map.

In batik, the post, stone, and table and other items would have been waxed off.

Below, another value has been added to the shadows beneath the barn and to the window

and between bricks.That is the red on my map.

Another value, very dark this time, has been added to under the stone beneath the post, around the cans,

in between some cracks. The shadow on the stone wall is deepened, and some window panes

are added inside the shadows. For this, everything that is not that darkest value would

be waxed, and then that dark value painted in in a batik. Pink marks what would have been waxed. Dark Blue indicates the very darkest values.

I removed all the masking fluid from the whites. Now my painting has some very

strong values. I decided to put a red can in an otherwise monochrome painting.

Here are a few videos you can watch to understand why value is such an important element in your work.

Getting to know value (10 min) (includes how to make tonal scale)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgQDtv0zJQA

Seven Tips for finding values 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ar01m-Wsoo

Diane Mize Quick Tip on discovering value range of colors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euC2FCydFcw