20140202 - Gold Finch

This time, I decided to try to do the Gold Finch as a traditional watercolor with pen & ink. To complete the painting, I did the painting in several stages.

 

First, I sketched the painting in pen & ink. I used Noodler's Black Ink on the limbs and bird. For this, I used a Noodler's Ink Brush Pen to paint the lines of the limbs and bird. This allows a varied line based on the subject. I also used Noodler's Black Ink for the black feathering of the Gold Finch.  I used Noodler's 54th Massachusetts Ink (a blue black ink) for the Red Bud flowers. I used a traditional fountain pen to draw these lines. This kept the lines much lighter. However, I used a Pentel Aquash waterbrush to spread the ink to provide the blue shading in the flowers. I also used the waterbrush to create the shading of the limbs. I am pretty pleased with that overall effect. Oh, and I used Noodler's Yellow Ink to "paint" the yellow feathering of the Gold Finch.

 

Second, I spent a good bit of time applying masking fluid to all the exposed inked portions of the painting. This allowed me to paint over the previously inked portions and create the background for the painting. I decided to create a field heading off toward a hedge row (typically separating fields) in the background. And I wanted the sky to be a setting sun.

 

You will note that for the composition of this piece, I placed the Gold Finch in the center. Then the tree limbs reach from bottom right to top left. The field due to perspective switches from an up and down appearance on the left side of the painting to one that follows the tree limbs on the right hand side of the painting. And the sky runs counter to the tree. All of these thinks set eye in motion as it scans the painting, but draws the eye back toward the center.

 

As you might imagine, this painting took longer than my normal paintings. I hope you enjoy the results as much as I enjoyed painting this.