I must really like red heads

This is obviously a very proud bird.  He's sitting on a branch with his chest puffed out.  There must be a female on a brach close by.  He seems to be looking off to the side, so perhaps she'e just off the page to the left.

For those that have followed my paintings for a while now, you can see that I am a lot less "tight" with my paint.  I'm trying hard to let things be, and just allow the paint to fill in the spaces it needs to fill.  I've seen that if I fidget with things and try to get them "right" the only thing I can be certain of is that things won't look "right".  If I let the paint do it paint thing, things look a bit better and less fiddled with.

Well, its a quick painting that I had fun with, hope you all like it.

Some Red Head

Ok, here is a quick sketch of a little red bird.  Not exactly what kind of bird it is.

Working on painting loose, but may have gotten a little too loose around his head and on the branch in the foreground.

All in all it's not a bad little painting.

I've looked at this painting several times over the past day or so, and I keep trying to figure out what this guys story it.  I haven't quite gotten it, but whatever he is doing, it looks like he needs to wear gloves for it.  Maybe they are driving gloves?   Not really sure.  Well, anyway, enjoy.

I've So Many Birds People are Calling me Hitchcock

7x9 watercolor. This painting for sale.

I've been working on these for a while, and it was finally time to finish them.  The top bird is of course a bluebird, and the bottom is, I believe, a house finch.  It seems as though I like to paint fat birds.  I look out the windows and rarely see birds as fat as the ones I paint.  Again, I am experimenting with making the border between the subject and background very dark.  I think on the finch painting it gives it a really interesting effect, though I think i did a better job with the green than the blue.

7x9 watercolor.  This painting currently for sale.

The scariest thing I have done in a long time is paint the pine branches in front of the finch.  I had to channel my inner Bob Ross and pretend that all was going to be ok if I did it.  And I think it turned out ok.  I had to do something to push the bird back into the painting just a little bit, and to paint in front is the best way to do it.  Now, I probably have a bit more confidence to do it again when I need to.

I love the way the background colors ran together in the bluebird painting  and love the way the blue spread out in the finch painting.  I am definitely gonna work harder to get both of those effects in future paintings.

As with all artwork on this site.  It is for sale unless otherwise noted.  Please contact Michael for details.

Red (or greed) Again

Watercolor 7 1/2x9.  SOLD

Ok, so I had painted this picture, and actually thought it was not too good.  So, being the good watercolorist, decided to do something about it, and since my medium is watercolor, was able to do something fairly easily.

The first thing I did  was get most of the picture wet.  Then I began scrubbing off the old background.  I was able to get most of it off without too much trouble.  The only parts that didn't come off too well were the parts around the leaves.

Next I wanted to try out a new technique.  I actually tried it at lunch today on a different painting, and it work out really well.  (A little backstory.  We have a   faculty member here who is a professional watercolorist.  One of the things he does it make strong delineations around his subject.  Having a strong color and then blending to a light hue at the edge makes for a very dramatic painting.)  I tried his technique here and It worked out pretty good.  I couldn't make the light are too light because it would show the paint that I couldn't lift off.  but even so, the bird pops out of this painting, and looks 100X better than the previous one did.  I'm glad I took the time to do this.  Hope you all enjoy it.

New Birds

Watercolor 9x9 SOLD

Well, I'm working on my blending technique.  I think the first bird here, I did  a good job.  The second, not so much.  The background in the second got out of control a little fast.  But the picture I took it from was pretty similar to that.  I actually think I did justice to the real picture, I just think i neet to not be quit so literal.

House Finch  SOLD

Little Grey Finch

SOLD

I saw this little guy and had to give a go of painting him.  I think I got the colors a little dark, but I still think he came out quite nicely.   Perhaps on this one I should have painted a background.