Alex Warnick- Natural History Artist
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Nail Polish and a Cedar Waxwing

6/24/2015

3 Comments

 

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:
Picture
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:
Picture
Many, many layers later, and after a more rendered approach to the bird itself, I have my final product:
Cedar Waxwing painting
"Cedar Waxwing and Elderberries"  Acrylic on Lanaquarelle hot press paper.
3 Comments
Katherine link
9/2/2015 05:42:00 pm

Looking at this I wonder if you put down a mask around your bird and berries? Or maybe you just paint the background in white once you finish? If you do the latter your lines come out very crisp. How do you do that?

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Alex Warnick
9/3/2015 04:02:40 am

It does look like I put masking around the bird before I began painting, but you're correct, I painted white around it once I was finished. I think the sharp edges come from careful outlining and lots of layers. I painted maybe fifteen layers around the bird in order to get the background completely opaque and to hide the messiness. Maybe masking would have been easier! But I liked the "painterly" effect of using the white paint instead. I hope that answers your question! Thanks Katherine!

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2/13/2020 03:12:24 am

You have painted an amazing picture partiucularly sparrow is looking very astonishing and attractive which caught my attention so quickly. I would love to give five stars out of five for this magnificent work of art you have done.

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