Tuesday 18 September 2018

Taken Over By the Wood

 All of the recent work has been completed on some lovely pieces of wood. I have kept the subjects varied but centred around being popular birds/animals. The Privet Hawkmoth (above) was hot on the heels of the other moth paintings which really went down well and sold.
I used a similar shaped piece of wood as I did for the Bittern, to complete the Great Spotted Woodpecker (below), I used the knot on the wood as part of the image and placed the woodpecker as it were clinging to it and then a slight shading underneath to give it a 3D sort of effect.

 I used a "cheese cut" piece of sycamore, sanded very smoothly by wife Sarah ( Sarah prep's all the wood I use). The paint seemed to soak in quite a lot in some areas, but each piece of wood is different to work with, but the Grizzly came out really well and fitted perfectly to the shape of the wood. 
 I had had this idea for a owl to be peering around a tree, using the bark on the wood to imitate a real tree, the eyes were tricky but I think they represent the big glossy eyes of a Tawny Owl.
Moving back to animals I got to paint 2 separate Red Squirrels, and once again using the knots of the wood as perches for the squirrels.

 It was straight back to birds and next a Green Woodpecker as an addition to the other woodpecker already done, it was at first awkward trying to get the correct tone of greens for this woodpecker as they are such a lovely colour, but I believe I got a realistic shade for the bird, and the shadowing on this one seemed to really make it stand out.
And my final piece completed has been our very own little girl Elka the French Bulldog. Really chuffed with how she turned out but now it means I have to paint one of our other French Bulldog, Tucker using a similar looking piece of wood. I am loving painting different stuff on these pieces of wood, it's different and each piece has a unique grain and pattern which only gets better when the painting is finished with a varnish. 
New subjects are being sorted as of writing, including hopefully Wryneck (as part of the woodpecker group) Tucker (obviously) Grey Partridge and more Hawkmoths.