as they don’t fit into squares
I thought I would be champing at the bit to paint exotic birds, but bizarrely, I simply can’t get my head around them. I have done some of the tropical birds necessary for the Mossy Earth Yasuni birdwatching poster, but for some reason I am procrastinating more than usual.
The birds I need to paint are all incredibly attractive and decorative species such as toucans, kingbirds and macaws, but I’m limping my way through them and not terribly pleased with the output. It’s strange, as really illustration should be just that: more diagrammatic, functional and serving a purpose than fine or purely decorative art, but it still needs feeling and love, and I can’t seem to engage with these birds. I don’t have a deadline (perhaps that’s the problem!) and I have had a lot of other things happening which are quite distracting, and perhaps I need to put on the Panama Feedercam from Cornell Bird Lab in the background to get in the mood for bright colours and big beaks. I just want to draw horses and paint fish though, which isn’t a very helpful mindset for a bird project. I also don’t have the correct hue of yellow which is annoying me, but surely it can’t all be down to a tube of paint? I do find painting birds that I can’t fit into squares (and therefore circles) really difficult for some reason, and most of these birds have long tails or big bills which make them unbalanced on the page…maybe that’s it.
Here are the ones that I’ve done so far:
