(no subject)

[corvi]

Some days you wake up and you need to paint a vulture and plum blossom monster even though it's not a traditional Chinese brush painting subject.



This is my second attempt to paint birds. The instructor hasn't shown us birds yet, but I love birds, so here we are.

This time I planned out major feathers and did one brush stroke, approximately, outlining each. I think I succeeded at portraying a bunch of feathers! Overall, I'm not sure the collection of feathers quite coalesces into a bird, but it feels like I figured some things out and I'm pleased. I am considering going back over all the feathers with a grey or brown wash to make it all a little more solid-seeming.




Here's my previous attempt at birds.




Lumpy craggy mountains look good, and lumpy wind-twisted trees look good, but lumpy birds rather less so. I don't know if I need to get better at painting precisely, or if I need to use a completely different approach for birds than I do for landscapes. There's a classic style of "Bird and Flower" paintings that are more like cartoons: you outline shapes in very fine detailed black ink and fill them in with bright colours, but that is less interesting to me.

A bird with distinctive markings might be easier than an all-black bird, too. Hm.

Comments

[jkatkina]

I think the magpies are a good start: that stark black-and-white patterning works very well for this kind of inkbrush and the tailfeathers in particular are very successful. I think your impulse to do a brown wash over the vulture to close its silhouette is a good thought, too, although it may be effective to choose ahead of time a couple of spots to leave white, as shine spots or highlights.

Also, I parsed that image at first as "vulture with cherry blossom tail", which is very gorgeous and evocative as an idea. Red head, pink blossoms, newness from death and all that.