MATERIALS
• Canvas – Good quality 10oz acrylic primed cotton canvas over 60 x 90cm stretcher bars
• Brushes – Most of the large shapes are blocked in using a one and a half inch flat brush and smaller flat brushes are used to define edges. For details, I use a variety of round brushes from size 6 to 12. I use a fan brush that I trim so it is thinned to half its thickness and for feathers and details on the log. The sky was painted with couple of good quality 10cm white, synthetic ABC brand house painting brushes. One is used to apply the paint and the other is used, dry to blend.
• Acrylic Paint – I mainly use Matisse Flow and Hydrocryl colours. Both companies make unique Australian colours.
• Matisse Flow Colours – White – Australian Sky Blue – Cerulean Blue – Light Gold – Cobalt Blue – Transparent Red Oxide – Transparent Yellow Oxide – Deep Rose Madder – Magenta – Aqua Green Light – Light Red Matisse – Cadmium Orange Dark – Hansa Yellow Light
• Hydrocryl Colours – Ultra Violet – Burnt Sienna
• Mediums
Matisse Drying Retarder – slows drying time
Jo Sonya Flow Medium – smooths out brushwork
Matisse Acrylic Painting Medium – thins down paint
Matisse Surface Tension Breaker creates watercolour like effects
Micador Satin Spray Varnish – seals and protects
The artist took the reference photos for this painting at a local café and the wonderfully textured tree trunk at a different location. Whilst she is a realist artist, Linda create narratives from the birds’ perspective and tries to convey them through paint. Our native birds are dependent on the existence of log hollow habitat for their survival and thus the log hollow is a major focal point of the composition. She then uses a little artistic licence to add that extra touch of quirkiness to her artwork.
STEP ONE
I always start by painting the background, and when this is thoroughly dry I draw in my subject using a watercolour pencil. Any corrections that need to be made to the drawing can be easily wiped off with water. In this painting, the background is the sky, and I have added light along the horizon line to create the illusion of distance.
The first step is to thin my sky colours with a small addition of each of the following mediums, Drying Retarder, Flow Medium and Acrylic Painting Medium. These mediums allow me to increase my blending time, flatten out my brush strokes and they dry to a good, washable flat finish.
Once I have the right consistency paint, I use my house painting brush and start at the bottom of the canvas, using long horizontal strokes loaded with white paint dulled with a touch of gold. I then blend Australian Sky Blue into this colour and continue up the canvas, finally blending in the Cerulean towards the top. Once this is done I take a dry house painting brush and blend the whole canvas again to smooth out any imperfections.
After this has dried, I repeat the process to add a second coat. Think of it like painting a wall in the house. You can’t get a good result with just one coat.
STEP TWO
Next I use my flat brushes to block in the basic tonal values on the cockatoos, using White and a dirty mix of Blue.
STEP THREE
(Wet or dry – can use whichever one you feel works best) The log is painted wet on wet reserving the lights just like in watercolour. I lay the painting flat and saturate the log with Surface Tension Breaker and Acrylic Painting Medium. Taking a large flat brush, I load it with multiple colours including the Transparent Oxides, Deep Rose Madder, Burnt Sienna and Ultra Violet and then gently drag this brush through the wet mediums mix. My colours will run and bleed only within the wet area, and will combine on the canvas to make a huge variety of Browns. Then I use my round brush and very fluid paint to drop in some details. As this begins to dry, I lift out a few extra highlights with a clean, damp brush.
STEP FOUR
White feathers are never white, but reflect a myriad of colours from the environment around them. To create this effect I am going to under paint the cockatoos tonally using a half inch flat brush and thin glazes of paint in the following colours, Magenta and Cobalt Blue, Transparent Yellow Oxide, Aqua Green Light and some Orange. Again, every brushstroke follows the contours of the body or the pattern of the feathers. At this stage the cockatoos colours look unrealistic and the tonal range a little too dark, but these colours will form the shadows between the feathers. I also add all of these colours into the beak.
STEP FIVE
Using a half inch flat brush, I add in my lightest whites creating a pattern of brush marks that resemble the patterns of the feathers. Notice how I leave some of the areas of underpainting showing through for the shadows beneath each feather. To create the darker areas of White, I muddy it with a touch of Blue and Brown.
STEP SIX
Now I start adding in the details on the birds using a fan brush and No. 6 round brush. I use the same brushes to paint in the woodgrain details on the log using the same colours as my underpainting.
FINAL STEP
Lastly, I add some feet to the birds, some highlights in the eyes, and put some final shadows on the log using a one-inch flat brush I try to stop painting at what I consider 80 percent finished, and leave the painting for a few days before making any final tweaks. This stops me overworking a piece.
After the painting has had three days to cure, I will spray it with three coats of Satin Varnish.
ARTIST’S HINTS AND TIPS
• Start with the biggest brush you can handle and leave the small brushes to the very end. This stops you getting too detailed, and forces you to concentrate on tone. When the major shapes and tones are correct you will be surprised by how little detail you actually need. With experience, you can learn to use a very limited range of brushes to make your marks accurately.
• Always use an Acrylic Painting Medium that has a binding component to dilute acrylic paints instead of water. Too much water breaks down the binding properties of the paint, which means the paint can be rewet even after it has dried. This can be become a problem when you are using multiple glazes like I have in this demonstration. During my time working at a picture framing shop, I have seen many paintings that are unable to be cleaned as they have not been created using the correct mediums or varnishes.
• If you’re using a reference photo, print out an A4 sized black and white photo on a normal inkjet printer. Use this at the start of your painting to get the tones correct. I find I often use my black and white for the majority of the painting. Everything we paint is a pattern of light and dark, so look at your black and white photo, squint and then try to identify the patterns that you will be creating with your brush.
• I use brushes made out of synthetic Taklon with acrylics for the following reasons: They facilitate the smooth application of paint which makes them perfect for blending, they can hold a large wash and are ideal for glazing, they wash up easily in water, they maintain their shape through some pretty rough treatment
• If something is wrong with your painting and you just can’t figure out what – take a photo of your artwork on your mobile and compare it to the black and white reference photo. The corrections that need to be made become glaringly obvious. Take frequent breaks from your work. When we work too long on a piece, we often get focused on unnecessary details.
• When painting wet on wet, only partially mix your colours on the palette so you can load your brush with a variety of colours that will bleed and merge together on the canvas creating a much more interesting effect. Also resist the urge to put in details as these will significantly change over the 12 hours it will take to dry. Just focus on getting the lights and darks in the right place, and then let go and allow the mediums to do their work. More accurate hard and soft edged details can be added once the work is dry.
• Start with the foundation skills. You can paint anything if you invest your time in learning foundation skills like drawing, colour mixing, tonal work and brushwork. Lots of students want to learn how to paint a very specific artwork, but the reality is that if take the time to master the basics and concentrate on tone, line and shape you can paint or draw anything. If I was to compare painting to music it would be like just wanting to learn how to play “Stairway to Heaven” instead of mastering your instrument and learning how to read music. Once you master the basics, your choices are only limited by your imagination.
