Birds in the Garden: Week 4

Sketch of the blue tits above from this week’s session is almost finished; its back needs a bit more attention. I’ve included it to show how the vegetation of twigs and bushes can be shown with little strokes and leaves almost printed with the brush.

This last week you are invited to paint a colourful finch or the grey and brown house sparrow.

After choosing your bird try out some sketches of its body shape in different attitudes before planning the final composition. You may choose to make a detailed study of one bird or of one or more birds showing the sort of habitat they dwell in and what they are perching on etc. Research in bird books for details of markings etc. and you may find a clarity not always evident in photographic reference. Try not to copy either sort of reference slavishly but let both kinds of reference inform your painting. The best way is to observe from life whenever you can and with a little practice it is surprising how much you can draw from a moving subject. Birds often repeat movements and you can start a variety of little drawings on a page that are initially no more than a few marks, which you can build on till they become bird shapes with a lot of vitality.

Do also look at the following Pinterest boards;

Finches at:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jhall1282/birds-in-art-and-photos/finches/

Sparrows at:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jhall1282/birds-in-art-and-photos/sparrow-photos/

We’ll talk about the colour mixes for the Finches and Sparrows at the session and fix a short review session for the following week.

Your paintings: