Vulturine Guineafowl

Another quick one, well as quick as I seem to be able to do watercolours. The Vulturine Guineafowl of Africa. In this case coming through the grass.

Art Book Review: Botanical illustration Course

This is one of those books that I keep coming back too. Not because it is easy and fun, but because it is hard. When you look through it, well it always seems easy. However trying it out is another story.

The book is really for those seriously into Botanical Illustration, if your idea is just painting blue flowers, then it is probably the wrong thing. If your wanting to get into scientific illustration, then it is probably one of the best places to start. If only to see the standards required.

The emphasis is on watercolour, but really anyone who is patient and works through it will benefit.

Definitely worth getting.

Blue Tit on Hawthorn

The Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus, one of my all time favourite birds. Done in coloured pencil. Lifesize on a Hawthorn Branch.

Olive-backed Sunbirds

Some more coloured pencil work. Olive-backed sunbirds, olive-backed sunbird, Nectarina jugularis. A male and female, they are fairly common in parks and gardens, and are found throughout SE Asia into Northern Australia.

Lovely little birds. Where possible I try and do things life size, so I think the finished painting is about 12x16 inches in size.

Jacobean Lilly

These are spectacular flowers, like most lilies. In this case it is watercolour and 95% complete. I need to finish off a few bits, but towards the end of a painting it is generally safer to hide it away for a couple months and come back to it.

It is always too easy to get impatient and try and do too much. Still it is ok.

Daylily - Hemerocallis citrina

I got some new paper so was playing around with it, Saunders Waterford HP, which was a first for me. The paper feels gorgeous, and lifts easily, doesn't seem to bloom and so on. In short there are a number of nice features, but I am still unsure of it.

As a first go I painted a Daylilly, Hemerocallis citrina but there seems to be a grainy effect to it that has me a little bit bothered. Particularly with the green leaves which I have done hundreds of times, but in this case was really throwing me out.

It is just the first attempt with that paper, so I will push on with it and see how it goes. The yellows which are normally most difficult seemed ok, anyway will experiment further with it.



As an aside I have been using Arches and Fabriano so it is something that is easy to forget how important the paper is when using watercolour. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, and as a painter different papers tend to suit different techniques and styles.

A lot of people get hung up on paints and brushes, but with watercolour I think 90% of it comes down to the paper.

Superb Fairy-wren in Acrylics

Lately I have been wondering about the best way to do things. So have been experimenting quite a lot, mostly just in my sketch book/ journal or whatever you want to call it.

I do love watercolour, but sometimes it just seems so difficult to do what you want to do. Hence my thinking the right tool for the job - in this case painting birds. Which is where the acrylic comes in.

So firstly an apology, for many years I had a snobby attitude to acrylics. I started out with them in the mid 80's. Actually using my mothers to be honest. Then I think for a birthday when I was about 14 or so, I got a set of oils - and never thought of Acrylics again. Pretty much everything but.

So by chance I had been feeling frustrated with oils, and watercolour is great for somethings - and then the other day I found a little starter set of acrylics going cheap. An old box - but $13 for 18 colours of a well known brand, I thought I may as well take the chance. I actually half expected them to be all dried up.

It was a bit of a relevation that I found even this old crappy box very easy to use, just on paper with a spare old brush - and it took about 20min to get an acceptable Superb Fairy-wren. So the next step is to actually get some real acrylic kit. I already have my shopping list worked out. Now just the shopping part.

Incidentally the Superb Fairy-wren is a favourite little bird of mine from south eastern Australia, Malurus cyaneus. They are actually a very interesting little genus of birds which I have been studying on and off over the years. Including a book on them - which is still in progress...

Here is the 20min experiment with cheap paints just on paper: