MATERIALS
• Paper:
Fabriano 600gm hot press paper
White Saral Transfer paper
Black carbon paper
• Brushes:
NAM 12 Red Filbert
70mm hake (Francheville #6)
Holbein two inch and one inch goat’s hair hakes
Windsor and Newton Series 7 #2 brush
Roymac 3550 Golden Sable 00 brush
• Holbein Watercolour Paints: – Neutral Tint and Sepia
• Art Spectrum Gouache:- White – Black – Vermillion – Burnt Umber – Burnt Sienna – Primrose Yellow – Middle Green – Naples Yellow – Sky Blue
Before any painting is commenced, a number of decisions have to be made. The first for me is the subject. I have thousands of photographs of wildlife (mostly but not exclusively birds) and a decision needs to be made on what species of animal,insect, or bird will be the subject of my new painting. The second decision will be the support base that I use for the painting. For the purpose of this demonstration I will be using the Fabriano 600gm hot press paper. The thickness of the paper relieves me of the necessity of stretching the paper, which is something that always seems to cause me difficulty. Further decisions need to be made on how closely I’ll follow the photograph, the lighting direction and the size of the painting.
STEP ONE
For this demonstration I will be painting a favourite bird of mine, a Red Capped Robin. Having selected a photograph, I draw the bird using grids to help me keep correct proportions.
STEP TWO
With all of my paintings, I always start with the background and work forward. When using watercolour paper I blend the gouache on the paper directly, placing dobs of paint directly out of the tube onto the paper and then push them around with a large brush. To begin with, I thoroughly wet the paper and apply colour directly to the surface. Then with a larger brush I push the colours around so that there is a rough blend. The brush I normally use for this is NAM 12 Red Filbert,but any bigger brush should work just as well, as long as the bristles aren’t too soft. The colours used on this background are White, Black, Primrose Yellow, Burnt Umber and Middle Green, all from Art Spectrum
STEP THREE
I now take a stiff hake brush and blend it a bit more (the paper still needs to be wet to do this). I used a 70mm hake (Francheville #6) with stiff bristles. To finish off the blending I then resorted to the very much softer (Holbein two inch and one inch) goat’s hair hakes, to softly merge the colours. It’s important that when you use these brushes that they are dry, as they become wet you need to use another dry brush. The wet brush will pick up too much paint and that will make the blending more difficult. For a small work like this I used about four brushes in this process; for larger works more brushes will be required. If necessary, wash out your existing brushes, let them dry, re-wet the paper and continue. It won’t make any difference to the finished work if it is done over several hours, days, or weeks.
STEP FOUR
Once the background is complete I attach the gridded drawing to the watercolour paper, using masking tape, but any sort of sticky tape will work.
Then I slide a sheet of white Saral Transfer paper underneath and trace the image onto the watercolour paper. That leaves me with a white outline of the subject, which I then fill in with white paint. I use a 50/50 mix of White Gouache and Atelier Matte Medium and Varnish, plus a few drop of water to make it easier to apply. It will probably be necessary to apply at least two to three coats to cover it properly, and results in a white silhouette of the subject. Once that is completely dry (usually about 30 minutes), I then trace in the details using a sheet of black carbon paper.
STEP FIVE
For this demonstration I am starting on the white part of the breast. First of all I painted the white areas with a diluted Neutral Tint (Holbein watercolour). Why would I cover a white area with a darker colour when it’s going to be white when it’s finished? Well, it’s not going to be completely white when it’s finished, and without the darker undercoat it’s not possible to get any depth in that area. To help create texture, I cross hatch the area with a Windsor and Newton series 7 #2 brush. Most of the painting will be painted with this brush. I splay the bristles in order to get a better appearance of texture. After the cross hatching in Neutral Tint, I then go over the top of that using white, trying to preserve some of the darker colour underneath. I continue to build up the area with successive coats of white paint.
STEP SIX
I then paint the black feather area with a light coat of black and build up that area with successive coats. Adding a lighter shade of grey on the back of the bird and parts of the head help give the bird shape. I put white edging on some of the feathers. For the red cap and chest I used Vermillion. The darker areas of the red were vermillion with black added. For the lighter areas I used orange and yellow. There is a general rule about gouache that if you want to darken your colour,add black or a darker colour, and if you want lighten it, add white. That won’t work with red, because if you add white to red you get pink, so to avoid getting pink I used yellow and orange
STEP SEVEN
Time to do the eye. The eye is the most important part of the painting, because if the eye is not right then the entire painting won’t look right either. For birds that have dark eyes, I paint the eye area black, when dry I add a little crescent of grey in the top of the eye and a smaller area on the bottom. To the top area I add a white highlight. The grey area at the bottom gets covered with Burnt Sienna. The bird is now finished, except for the legs, which I will finish off later.
STEP EIGHT
Now I’ll work on the branch. I wet the branch with water then add Holbein Sepia watercolour, making it darker on the bottom and lighter on the top. I then “shape” the paint using a dry brush to move the paint around, so that a patterned texture starts to appear. I add some white to the upper side of the branch and blend it with the sepia. The pattern is delineated with fine darker lines. To add a bit of reflective light, the bottom of the branch is coated with Burnt Sienna, which is then blended to the rest of the branch.
STEP NINE
The painting needs foliage to make it look more complete. On a transparent sheet of acetate, I draw a number of leaves. I use acetate, as it allows me to see where the leaves go in relation to the bird and branch. I then copy the drawing on my photocopier and trace the leaves on the painting using white transfer paper. The leaves are painted with a mixture made up of Middle Green, Sepia, Sky Blue and White. I make three variations of this colour adding extra white to each one. That gives me three different colours from the same source, so they should work well together. The stems are painted with a mixture of Naples Yellow and White. I use my Windsor & Newton series & #2 brush for the main colours on the leaves. For the veins and edges, I use a Roymac 3550 Golden Sable 00 brush.
STEP TEN
That completes that layer of leaves, but I want to add another layer over the top of that. To do that I use the same process of drawing on acetate laid over the painting. When I’m happy with the new leaf arrangement, I photocopy the acetate and use that copy to transfer the new layer of leaves to the painting. I want these leaves to come more to the front, so I under-paint them with white. With the same greens that I mixed before I add another one using more white mixed with the green, so now instead of three green colours, I have four. The white under layer allows me to add some of the paint more thinly and allow the white to come through, which will help in bringing those leaves forward of the first leaf layer.
FINAL STEP
To finish off, I add the legs and a layer of shadow under the bird. The shadow is important, as it helps anchor the bird to the branch.
