Prothonotary Warbler Part 2

GLAZING THE WOOD STUMPS & BRANCH

First use paynes gray OR blue with sienna to paint the darkest crevices and places where the wood is shadowed or separated. Let this dry. Then use warm brown (can be burnt sienna with French ultra marine, or lunar earth, or ochre with blue in it) to glaze over the wood stumps. Before it dries use one or more of these texture techniques: sprinkle with salt; spatter with water drops; spatter with other colors. Let it dry again. Leave the stem lighter for now except for an underpainting where the shadow underneath will be. One student just used a dry-brush technique,  below, which worked well also. Another student wanted a blue-grey for the stumps, also below.

(dry-brushed logs)

(blue-gray logs)

To finish the wood, strenghthen the darks in the crevices and dry brush some of the bark. Spatter some on the dry paint. You can also make dark marks and lines to create bark. 

I wanted to recreate a wetlands look, since these birds live and nest in the bark in the Oxbow area near our home. To make it look like the stumps are in flooded waters, I put a muddy blue/green wash for the water. I darkened the bottoms of the stumps, at the water line to make it look wetter. I painted a reflection of the stumps in the water. Then I lifted horizontal lines in the water to create ripples. I did also paint some water grasses and their reflections in the water. 

CREATING A "BOKEH" EFFECT BACKGROUND

Bokeh is an effect achieved through certain camera lenses that put an object in sharp focus, but blur the background. That blurred background is the bokeh. This part will require:

1. about 15 minutes of uninterrupted time
2. two containers of water, one clean, one for rinsing
3. TWO brushes: one for applying paint, one for applying clean water
4. 3 colors in well-dissolved puddles
5. (I used cerulean, hansa yellow, dioxozine purple)
6. 
   
7. You don't want to be trying to reconstitute paint while your doing this.This is wet on wet. You want wet, shiny, but not puddles. Wet an area with your clean brush, going an inch or 2 beyond where you will drop paint. Your paint will go where you have put the water. Then drop in cerulean, adding a little yellow. Add some purple in areas that you want a darker contrast.

Continue working around the birds, always keeping the leading edge wet so that you can continually add paint. If you get blossoms, you can either add more (by spattering water drops onto damp paint) or wait until they dry and gently blend them in. Please remember the 3" rule: don't go more than 3" before making a change in your color. 

FINISHING TOUCHES & TIPS

When the background is dry, soften the downy feathers of the birds in the head and breast areas. You can use a scrubbing brush or just a softer lifting brush. This will create a soft blend of the background with the birds.

If your stumps need to have some light on them, tear a length of masking tape in half lengthewise. Tape half of the tape on the left side of the crack you want to make and the other half of the tape on the right side. Run a wet lifting brush along the crack in the tape, and when it is dry, remove the tape.

This is a good method for getting back some of your lights on a rought texture.

Darken the shadowed part of the stem, if you have one. 

Strenghthen the shadows underneath the wings. Be sure the eyes are very dark. Create some little feathers in the tops of the wings. Paint the legs with a blue gray, leaving some white for hightlight.