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:
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.
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