More painting from life, albeit just another spot in the backyard. This is a wind mobile in the garden, a pair of very rusty birds balanced on a simple cup at the top of a pole. Why not? The point was to get out and do something.
I have to say that I didn't like this painting for most of the time working on it. I don't have any process photos so you'll have to take my word for how messy and mediocre it was. But ultimately I embraced the idea that the artist is not a camera. Yes, the foreground bird is too small and I wish I could change that without wiping out what's there, but at some point I tried making it a better painting instead of an accurate representation.
I left out the black steel fence that's behind the scene. The vertical shadow at the tip of left wing of the right bird, and another over the bend in his right wing were completely random. However, as I look at them now, they suggest how subtly I could have laid in the fence, putting all the blue grey foliage behind it, where it actually is.
Probably because I was working with a limited palette of the colors left from the previous painting, I was frustrated that I couldn't get closer to the color of the large bush. As I shifted to the mindset of the painter instead of a photographer, I stopped worrying about it. I worked in cooler colors around the left bird to make it pop more. I also made the shadows on the stucco cooler, as well as some of the underside shadows on the birds.
Ultimately the stucco is one of my favorite things in this one. If I painted an adobe mission doorway like this, it could be really striking. My wife loves the rust on the birds.
I'm learning that even when I don't feel completely in control when trying to match painted color to life, I can still produce something I like. Again, it's just a page in a sketchbook. I'm not producing "masterpieces" meant for sale. I still can't dive into a painting with complete confidence but working through it doesn't feel as arduous.
--Tad
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