Drawing of black capped chickadee on branch

Today I completed a second bird drawing in the chickadee series. I love how quickly these are coming along compared to the longer and larger pieces which take forever to finish.

Chickadee no.2
6"x8"
pencil
SOLD

Black Capped Chickadee Painting

For this composition, I used two of my reference photographs and rearranged/re sized the birds and tree branch/trunk until I reached a desirable composition. I originally had come up with 4 different poses but finally decided on this particular one since the position of the birds and tree recreated the most pleasing and balanced arrangement.

I am delighted to have been able to complete this painting in a relatively short time!

"Two's Company" ~ Black Capped Chickadees
pastel on archival sanded paper
14" x 11"

To view the progression of this painting, visit my website here:
http://www.colettetheriault.com/descriptions/workinprogess/Chickadees_wip.php

Today's update on the chickadee painting

I have worked more of the birch bark on this step and slowly working my way to the right and downwards to prevent smudging the pastel. Accidental smudging is much more of an issue when working pastels on sandpaper as opposed to using suede or velour. But then, one can easily blend the pastel on the sandpaper; virtually impossible on the flock type surface of the velour and suede.

Chickadee painting step 4

As an animal artist who paints mainly fur, I have to admit that I am finding that recreating the birch bark on this scene is a refreshing change. I can't say that it is easy to follow the intricacies of the bark on the reference and then reproduce them on paper...it's probably because I am not used to drawing trees. So forcing myself to do so is a great exercise (which is what I consider this painting to be).

Step 3 of Chickadee bird painting

I am not quite finished the second bird on this update as I decided to add some of the background color of the birch trunk to help me evaluate my values. I am looking forward to start working on the birch bark detail  and hope it won't present too much of a challenge but I am ready for it!

Step 2 of Chickadee bird painting

With the background now complete, I have begun to add the details of  one of the main subjects. Being right handed, it makes sense to work the bird on the branch on the left hand side first, to avoid smudging the painting as I work my way across.

Working backgrounds with pastels

I am happy to share that the horse portrait is now complete and waiting client approval! I will share the final scan of the work once I am sure that no other touch ups are needed, I promise!

Feeling a sense of relief, and wanting to indulge in my own creativity, I am now working on a wildlife bird scene of two black-capped chickadees. Since I received my order from Blick today, why not try my new Rembrandt's on the Colorfix Plein Air Painting Board?

After printing and cutting the outline of my subjects, I worked the background first, spreading the pastel with my fingers (I use finger cots now!) all the while using the cut-out paper as a guide and a mask. This is an easy and fast way to work backgrounds while keeping the area that needs to be free of color still virgin. I have included the two images below to illustrate my point.



-completed background with cut-out (grey-scale)

-background completed with cut-out removed leaving clean area with crisp edges