A wonderful, simple painting of magpies scratching amongst the dry earth.
STEP ONE
I roughly painted my canvas by using up remaining paints from a previous painting in earthy tones. I rubbed out some areas and added more paint into sections and left any marks that will represent the dry earth and twigs etc. As I do not intend to paint a realistic depiction of these magpies, I need the background to be quite loose.
STEP TWO
Once I have decided on my images from my reference material, I lightly draw in the birds using a watercolour pencil. Sometimes I have already worked out where I want the birds to be placed but once I start to draw my images on the canvas, I may change the positioning.
STEP THREE
I quickly block in the darks of each bird. I do not use black but a mix of Paynes Grey and Burnt Umber. I mix up a grey from the original dark mix and paint in some lighter tones on the magpies.
This story is from the Issue 29 edition of Australian How To Paint.
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This story is from the Issue 29 edition of Australian How To Paint.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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