Painting is the most difficult part of completing a bird sculpture for me. Yet, there something deeply satisfying in the effort to find the correct colors. My first carving teachers were Lorne and Maria LaGoy. Maria, who specialized in painting, taught me to mix multiple colors of acrylic paint in a bit of water then apply myriad coats of paint thinned to the thickness of skim milk. It ofen seemed to me that the bird was the wrong color, but just when all seemed lost Maria would mix a different color for the final wash and it always transformed the carving to the color of a real bird. I never understood how she did that and I was totally dependent on her to know what colors to use. A year ago, a six-week drawing and painting course at Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary opened a window on how Maria knew what colors were needed. Jan Ruby-Crystal taught color theory and loaned me books that guided me through experimenting with combining colors. Recently, we chatted informally about painting while I watched her apply paint to her current project and I observed what happened as she applied one color over a totally different color. For the peregrine falcon carving, I gathered reference photos and prepped the surface with gesso as is the norm for any carving. I tried something new too. First, I coated a page in my carving notebook with gesso and experimented with how much ultramarine blue and burnt umber to use on the back, wings, and head and how the color would change as washes of color were added. The experimenting helped me understand a bit what Maria knew. In spite of experimenting until I thought I knew what to do the color on the falcon seemed to be going in the wrong direction, but I kept applying washes to build intensity of color in hopes that the final wash would fix it. When it was time for the final wash, I held my breath then broke into a smile as a color close to my reference photos appeared on the back of the falcon. |
0 Comments
|
ABOUT AUTHORJanice has been a bird carver since 2002. She carves basswood with knives and tupelo with power tools. Her favorite is which ever wood she has in her hands at the moment. Archives
April 2020
|