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Montana Bird Art (1 Viewer)

Hi Woody, Phil and User. Thanks for commenting on the ravens. They are one of my favorite birds to see and study but it turned out to be hard to paint light on black. Now I guess I should paint something with a summer environment to "warm up" my studio. That raven pic is cold!

Sid
 
sfrissell said:
Hi Woody, Phil and User. Thanks for commenting on the ravens. They are one of my favorite birds to see and study but it turned out to be hard to paint light on black. Now I guess I should paint something with a summer environment to "warm up" my studio. That raven pic is cold!

Sid
Click to expand...

Just been looking again at the raven pic...and it made me think....:smoke:

It is good to see 'crow types' portrayed in a 'positive' light....when one considers all the irrational fears associated with them throughout the ages...[and 'they' are still used today as depicting 'not nice' things]....daft really...just because they're intelligent and happen to be the color they are....

Ah well......[onto 'warmer subjects]....:t:
 
Lovely work Sid.

username said:
Just been looking again at the raven pic...and it made me think....:smoke:

It is good to see 'crow types' portrayed in a 'positive' light....when one considers all the irrational fears associated with them throughout the ages...[and 'they' are still used today as depicting 'not nice' things]....daft really...just because they're intelligent and happen to be the color they are....

Ah well......[onto 'warmer subjects]....:t:
Click to expand...

Hi Username.

Last week in the early morning, on my way home from a mothing session, I spotted a pair of ravens cross a ridge flying towards me. I stopped and let down the window and picked up the bins to have a look. The lead bird dropped suddenly as if to land, seconds later it was up again, carrying a small leveret, about the size of two fists, it was struggling pitifully. The female hare chased after it, jumping as high as she was able. After about 50 metres the raven landed on a small pile of rocks and killed the leveret, the female was running helplessly around the pile but afraid to approach the raven. She gave up and went back to look for her other leveret, it had been taken by the other bird, but she hadn't seen this. When she got back to the spot she couldn't find it, she panicked and started running blindly around the field looking for it. I suppose with hares being my favourites, it was one of the sadder things I've seen. All the philosiphy of life and the struggle to survive didn't count for much for me right then.

Twite.
 
All the Corvids are unusually smart birds, interesting to watch, and all are thieves when the opportunity arises to grab a meal!. It's just what they do. I've had people look at my Magpie Patterns painting (my avatar) and say "nice painting, but we really don't like Magpies. They attack all the other birds at our feeders. We have had Magpies at our feeders for years and have never seen one purposely attack a smaller bird. But, all the smaller birds dash away when a Magpie lands on the feeder. I guess that's what people see when they say 'Magpies attack the smaller birds". Oh well, if we boycotted predaceous birds we would have no paintings of Corvids, raptors, shrikes, etc, etc.
 
Correct Sid, corvids are extremely 'clever' in that they really do know how to recognise and then adapt to many given criteria - including food sources. Your maggies may be fairly peaceable sorts, but when I lived in Yorkshire I saw one sidle up to a newly fledged house sparrow, catch it by the neck and bang it on the birdtable - quite mesmerisingly grotesque. It then ripped it up and scoffed it down - luvverly. They would regularly scuttle along the gutters and take apparenty random jabs underneath in the hope of grabbing young starlings or sparrows.
I love them, and they're the first bird I seek out on any journey into southern territory.
 
cold cold cold....have painted a few black animals aways a challenge...on thing to try is , don't use black to do it, use a mix of something that can be warmed or cooled by changing ratios. ...like say indigo and bt sienna.....then look at the light and see if it is a warm or cool light, warm light, cool shadows, cool light warm shadows, need real eyeballs to see this the camera can't...


engaging painting.....
 
Re corvids...

As we all know there is far more to their plumage than meets most eyes...:eek!:

The reflective qualities are quite astounding....!

Most folk think that magpies are just black n white birds...[ha]!!

ps....rook's a fav o mine....[plus jackdaw as i love their curious intelligent nature]...

pps...[just to repeat]....great raven illustration of yours...:t:
 
corvids are among my favourites, it's a love-hate thing - they're beautiful and I just can't get them right.
 
I guess it's not a matter of any predator being "right" or "wrong", but rather, everybody's got to eat.

Nick, maybe Tim's new book will tell us how to paint these birds? Even if it doesn't, I'm sure we'll be impressed with it!
 
Just to stay up in the thick of things here, thought I'd better post something. This small (10 x 16) painting is a watercolor on Ampersand Aquabord (was called "Textured Claybord"). It's perhaps a bit too bright, but if you had seen the sun lighting the red-rock cliffs of Zion National Park, in Utah, you might believe the brightness. I liked the blue Scrub Jays against the complimentary orange cliffs.

With this Aquabord support, I only had to spray the finished painting with acrylic varnish and could frame it without glass. Some might say "that's not a watercolor", but it was painted with watercolor paint. If you screw up you can just wipe the paint away right down to the white board. Amazing stuff, but doesn't have the "magic" feeling of putting watercolor on good watercolor paper. More like acrylic painting with watercolor paint (except for being able to "erase").

Comments welcome. Anyone here tried Aquabord??

Sid
 

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having been there, can say the color is not exaggerated but true...and sets off the jays so nicely...


I've used that surface...right about not being quite as nice as a true watercolor for light and transparency...using modern ( quin and azo etc) is some help, but sure is nice to scrub back to whites again, also I scratch it like scratchboard for fine detail...can scratch and paint and area several times to layer color.
 
Sid,

This is a brilliant piece! Those Scrub Jays!

Blue and white on a red background. Superb.

Are those Juniper berries?

Whatever. The way you've mapped blue into the surrounds is very clever.

I like this.

I like it very much!
 
I love the colours - and you've done so well to get the blues to come forward despite what colour theory says.
 
Excellent bold interpretation of the scene, absolutely fizzing with colour. Agree with Nick about the colour theory thing too - which is, of course, Michael Ballacks. Just try this; paint a cerulean blue stripe and a scarlet one on a piece of black card and just see which zings forward in a 3-d way . . . . .
 
There is mounting evidence that you are a colorist at heart Sid! Between this and the header painting on your blog I'm starting to think that you really do love strong colors when you have the opportunity to use them. Or maybe it's just me and they're the ones that strike me most.

But I don't think so. The paintings where nature itself is colorful seem to bring out the best in you. This one is particularly striking!
 
Got to agree with all that's been said so far. This piece positively pings with colour! Hang the theory, tell it like it is!

Mike
 
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