Nail Polish and a Cedar Waxwing

A few weeks ago I spotted a deep purple bottle of nail polish.  The color struck me as something lovely, and I filed it away in my brain for future processing.  Days later when I was brainstorming what to paint next, I pulled that deep purple color out of my mental filing cabinet and pulled the lever on my mental slot machine:  Spinning, spinning, spinning… purple elderberries… spinning, spinning… a yellow Cedar Waxwing belly… spinning, spinning… waxy green leaves… ding, ding, ding!  It’s a match!  And that’s how a painting is born.  One color leads to another color, leads to subject matter, leads to a painting.  In this case, a Cedar Waxwing.  But first, let me show you how incredibly unattractive a painting can look in its beginning stages:

This is the stage where someone invariably comes to visit, views your newest work in progress, and leaves with a very low opinion of your painting skills.  I'm only showing this stage because I know this story ends happy.  I wanted the colors and patterns inside the berries and leaves to be abstract, so I started with a loose and abstract under painting.  That’s what you see above.  Once I was happy with the variety in the under painting, I began to carve out the shapes of the berries and leaves with a toned white paint:

Many, many layers later, and after a more rendered approach to the bird itself, I have my final product:

"Cedar Waxwing and Elderberries"  Acrylic on Lanaquarelle hot press paper.