Bird painting series

Starting a series of bird paintings.

It's time to think about spring .... because it certainly doesn't look like spring is coming anytime soon. (1 degree this morning). I have wanted to do  paintings of birds since I first learned to draw. In fourth grade I illustrated ( we called it coloring back then) my own field guide.

I happened to have six  new 8"x8" square panels in the studio so that's  what I started with.  In the last post I showed the thumbnail sketches, here I sketched out the compositions onto the panels.

Laying out a Blue Jay. I started with a very dry brush and sketched out the simple form. I was having too much fun to stop at just one.

So I sketched in all six.

On these two, I added just enough color to note the type of birds.

These two are more typical of how I start a dry brush sketch. Just a simple indication of the composition.

I'm still figuring out the background for the gold finches.

Here's the whole set as a work in progress. 

Frames on sale: Buyer beware:

I ordered a bunch of new frames from Jerry's Art-arama. They were on sale, only $10 each for 5x7's.. (very cheap for frames). Buying cheap always means a risk.  I wasn't pleased with the gold at all and would not order them again. The color and  finish of the gold frames were all different and sometimes the application was very poorly done. 

I was pleased with the black however,  and would probably order those again.