a splash of violet

and a Turtle Dove

I had it in my mind to paint a bird which could perhaps be turned into a print – yes I’m back on the merry-go-round of wondering in which direction to take my art and I’ve realised that rather than fighting this constant irritation it’s better to go along with it and get it out of my system.

This is different to the sort of downtime or playtime I do with my sketchbook: this is more to do with a frustration when my brilliant and transformative ideas (well, they are as far as I’m concerned) aren’t picked up by the world at large and adopted with tremendous enthusiasm, and I feel disgruntled at the injustice of it all.

So, I had it in my mind’s eye that I could paint a TD on a spring branch and paint a violet background which could then be made into a print. I used to sell my artwork at fairs and through galleries, but that is more problematic now as the footfall post-covid simply isn’t there anymore, and the costs of framing and delivering and the commission with galleries is something that needs to be fully embraced rather than casually investigated when I’m feeling inclined.

I’ve never made prints as frankly I have so many bird illustrations, and the style for illustration isn’t necessarily what would look good on a wall. Anyway, with a relatively clear Sunday to experiment, I thought I’d have a play around.

I painted the bird in my usual gouache, and scanned it in, and added the violet background in Photoshop. Then I started trying to get the painting to look more smooth and uniform…except I want it to look painted not digital. So I tinkered with some brush effects on the background but then didn’t like how artificial it looked. Hmm. This is my dilemma. I want my painting to look all perfect but in that case, why not just create it all digitally? I always standardise the backgrounds for the logbooks, but the reduction of size from sort of A4 to about couple of centimetres is extremely forgiving so I don’t notice the patchiness of the paint and mistakes.

Here is the finished image:

I might try doing some more of different birds, and see how they turn out.