Chicken painting complete!

I finished the painting of my Black Star hen "Meanie #1" today. Now all I have to do is let it dry for about five days, spray it with a protecting varnish, then it will be ready to hang in Mom's kitchen!


This is the first of three 8" X 10" paintings I am planning to make to hang in the kitchen. I am planning to paint a goat and a sheep to go along with this one.

I think Meanie #1 likes it!

Chicken painting update

 

Notice I blurred the background a bit. I was getting complaints about the background. : /

It's coming along!

A few more feathers and my chicken painting will be finished! Well... many more feathers. I think it will take a few more days to paint in the rest of the feathers. I usually only paint for a couple hours a day because I get very tired sitting in my chair and staring at my painting for so long and I have other stuff other than painting that I want to do. I also find it much easier on my mind when I only paint for a couple hours a day. I have no deadline for this painting anyway, so I can take as long as I want. :)

Back to painting

I got back to work on my chicken painting today. I mainly worked on making the chicken's beak and comb more detailed. I also roughly filled in the chicken's body, so you can get an idea of what the finished product is going to look like.

Don't you love goats?

I just finished a colored pencil drawing of two of my Nubian goats, Travis and Trevor. It is done on an 11" X 10" piece of 80 lb. Strathmore drawing paper. I actually started this composition a few months ago as sort of a practice piece, but I put it away and worked on other projects until I decided to finish it today.

It seems these twin brothers are always doing the same things and are never apart.

See what I mean?

Day two

I worked on my chicken painting this afternoon. I guess I didn't work on it very long, but you can see what I've done.

New project

Today I started on a painting of one of my pet Black Star hens named
"Meanie #1".  It is done on an 8" X 10" stretched canvas.

Here are the photos of the work I did today.

Step one: Draw grid in pencil.

Here I used 1" X 1" squares. Notice that one square in the middle of the canvas is divided into four smaller squares. This makes it easier to get an accurate outline of a small but important shape in the picture (the chicken's eye).

Step two: Draw outline in pencil.

Not only do I draw the basic shape of the subject, but I also try to outline certain details that I need to be reminded of when I start painting. Here I outlined the basic area where this chicken's red feathers are.

Step three: Paint background.

Step four: Start painting chicken.

I always like to start with an eye if I am doing an animal. It makes it so I have something to paint around and to compare my colors to (eyes are one of my favorite things to paint, anyway).

Here's how it's done...

Here are the photos I took of each stage of the painting "Late Summer Harvest" done in March 2012.

This composition was something new for me, since it was a close-up and I had never done a bee before, but I think the painting turned out quite well.