Watercolor Study: Learn to Paint Bird From Photograph

Doing a watercolor study is one of my hobby, it's fun, educating, and therapeutic. Birds are my favorite object to paint, especially chickadees. They look artistic even in a photograph, aren't they?

Few days ago, unlike usual, I was being a little bit productive and painted two of these birds. It's all started with me finding a good, photogenic looking photograph of birds on Google. Normally, I need something 'artistic' to pique my painting mood, otherwise I'd be in art block state for what seems like forever.

Paints and other art supplies are crucial. Having special paints, brushes, and papers will put me in artistic-mood. I love painting with natural-handmade watercolor paints, I also love handmade paper like Amalfi! I'm totally head over heels in love with everything handmade!

I'll be posting and reviewing all of these special art supplies later. I'd get my long-awaited-huge batch of handmade watercolors and papers in less than a week!

Alright now before anything, it's important to know about copyright law for derivative artworks. Read more about that HERE.

Anyway, as a reminder, this is just a study, using photograph as a reference can be a good start for aspiring artist to draw better. Photographs are one of useful tools you can use to improve your artistic sense. Photograph gives a lot of information about the object itself, as well as color value, composition, and harmony.

Paints: Lutea natural watercolor

Paper: Fabriano Artistico, traditional white. Cold pressed.

Brush: Silver Brush-Black Velvet

I've never liked hyper-realistic painting, really. What I'm after is more to the feels, senses, and individuality of the artwork itself. I want something different, something special that only you can create. Just like a signature.

Before this study, I've also never liked Fabriano paper, I was always into Arches! But after I tried Fabriano with Lutea watercolors, I think I like Fabriano!

The most fun part is painting the wings, I love it! 

Talking about birds, there was this random sparrow that got into my house. I named him beguk (beugook). He coudn't fly properly so I let him rest for a few hours before releasing him back to nature.

Moving on to the next watercolor study, I have this small, cute chickadee.

Paints: Lutea watercolor

Paper: Arches, cold pressed

Brush: Silver Brush - Black Velvet

The chickadee is way more fluffier on the photograph, painting on small scaled paper is really challenging as I have way less space for details. Particularly with Arches, the cold pressed one is more texturized and rougher than Fabriano, and painting details is harder on rough surface. I will try painting on the other side of the paper later because it has less texture and see if the end result would be smoother and nicer.

About the paints, I only use three different colors for both paintings. Indigo, Yellow, and Rouge Red. Lutea is a very special paints that also has special place in my heart. It's an all natural paints made from grass, plants, and flower. So exquisite, isn't it?

My First Original Art Purchase and Why I Bought it

Can't put into words how happy I am with my first art purchase! I was so eagerly waiting for it -that I spent hours!- peeking out the window waiting for the postman to deliver the joy to me! I was sure I'd receive the mail by Monday and here it is! Little envelope filled with pure joy, my first original art from Kateri Ewing!

Soft Morning Light by Kateri Ewing, as listed on Etsy

From the Tiny Window series, these sweet little paintings suggest a dreamy look out a window. Like tiny worlds from our mind’s eye.
I use handmade watercolours on Amalfi paper with lovely deckled edges. Size is 2 3/4 x 4 inches.
This sweet little window view features the exquisite handmade watercolours from @wildthorne

I literally stopped breathing out of excitement as I trying to safely open the thick envelope, and instead of getting one original art, I received three! I got two extras and that's veeeerry sweet of her!

Now let's take a moment to appreciate her beautiful artworks. I will show you the look of the envelopes (as when you order an original artwork) along with everything included inside the lovely mail.

She sent me a hand painted card with pretty watercolor strokes on it. Awww... This reminds me to her watercolor meditation series on YouTube, which is so 'Kateri'. I get to know the beautiful concept of Japanese aesthetic, shibui, and wabi-sabi from her too, though I've heard about it before but didn't really pay much attention to it. Now I see art in a wider perspective thanks to her :) 

The second artwork is a mesmerizing array of granulating colors with lots of metallic shimmer from MCMarts. So very very beautiful, it's a bit hard to capture the beauty of the silver shimmer but it's truly fascinating. You can click on the picture to enlarge it and check how beautiful the granulation is. This is the true beauty of handcrafted watercolors which you can't achieve only by using common artist grade watercolors. Only a few have granulation like the famous potter's pink or Daniel Smith PrimaTek series, which also made from mineral pigments.

 

The last in the lovely mail, but the first in my heart. This one is named 'Soft Morning Light' (love the name!) and I fell in love with this mini watercolor painting when Kateri posted it on her instagram (follow her if you haven't! @kateriewing ). I love love LOVE this watercolor painting that I can find myself fondling it many times in a day, looking at it, smile, and sigh lovingly. Even as I write this post it sits peacefully inside a frame near me. *sigh lovingly * isn't it beautiful?

The painting is so serene, so peaceful, and relaxing. It's a beauty of tranquility captured in a painting. I can feel a gentle breeze blowing through the soft curtain. It's one of those tranquil morning where you just look out the window and you will close your eyes to enjoy and appreciate every seconds of the moment. You will take a deep, long breath and releasing it with smile on your lips, and happiness in your heart. This heartwarming painting has a special place in my heart - the soft light, gentle curtain, and the beautiful scenery are sublime! Truly lovely in every way.

This style is called intuitive painting by Kateri, I really like this style and Kateri has so many tutorial video series on her YouTube called Art is for Everyone.

Why I buy original art:

First of all, I want to sincerely support the artist, I appreciate what they make, it's their love and passion in form of a paper. And by buying it I feel like sharing this precious feeling with them. And when I buy original art, I also hope that it will not only inspire me, but the artist as well.

Inspiration. Original art gives a LOT if inspiration, a lot of passion, that will always refuel my tired heart, really, there would be one day where I don't feel like painting at all, but I think, when I spend a bit of time to appreciate this original art, it will refuel my passion. It's therapeutical, it's healing.

Connection. between you and the artist, and the art itself. Kateri is one of my favorite artist so it feels super special to have her original artwork in my personal art space. Though, my art budget for this month mostly goes to handmade watercolor, but when I see this painting I just couldn't resist! Thankfully it was priced nicely!

Personal expression. Your big, or maybe small art space reflects your individual personality. Just like how you collect stamps, fashion items, or gemstones / jewelries.

Room aesthetic. Original artwork provides true beauty like nothing else, not a single art-print could compare to original art. It's the original paint on the surface of a paper, applied by meticulous hand with love! They're lightfast, and they have their own individual, unique texture. Original art decorates space in a room in the most aesthetic way.

It brings joy! That simple.

Originality. It's one of a kind, it's unique, it is original. There's only one of this painting in the whole world, and only you have it, how cool is that?!

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All in all, I'm so happy with this purchase! The mail reached Sweden (from US) in only four working days, super fast! It came in a good condition, and every artwork is carefully wrapped with what seemed like rice paper (not too sure though) secured with a cute washi tape.

To protect it from harmful intruders, like dust, humidity, mold, oily hands, I temporarily put the painting inside this PE (polyethylene) zip bag, PE is commonly used for archival equipments. And now all I need is a museum grade archival plastic bag to safely store this painting as well as my own original artworks. But for now I think the cheap poly bag will suffice. I put this lovely painting inside a silver plated frame that I got as a gift from a friend from Australia (thank you Chrissy!). But I think a simple wooden frame will suit this painting more, what do you think?