We can learn from Mother Nature! ...Meet Lady Bird!

Just when I thought I was making plans for two work shops, along came a global epidemic. Let me first apologize to my eager beginning watercolor students who got halted in their tracks! The conference at Lost Pines Art Center will go on this Fall as will the class at Art School MarbleFalls but I’m encouraging you to jump in before then and try some of my online practices through this blog. We can communicate and discuss until we meet in person....and it’s free from me to you. The supplies will cost you but all can be purchased online and delivered to your door. Be sure to contact me. The February blog has instructions for “ Texas Roadside Beauties”. My April blog will be devoted to “ Barns, Bluebonnets and Babies”.

In this crazy time period of social distancing, and more, one thing remains perfectly unchanged....blue skies, chirping birds and spring blooms are everywhere! I don’t know about you, but it makes me want to grab some of that resilience that occurs each Spring even after the hardest winter and use it to get through this time period. I am going to do some cooking, some reading and movie watching (and much needed reorganizing), but that cannot be my main focus.  So I plan to be outside enjoying as much of it as I can and I am also issuing a challenge to you to paint along with me.

My first coronavirus challenge is to paint this beautiful and complicated nest constructed by one hard working genius bird. It’s like the Taj Mahal of residences and it deserves some scrutiny and applause.
The bird is very cute, too!

 The photo was taken by my friend, Gerry Russell, who, luckily for us, observes nature with her
camera. Thank you, Gerry!

Lady Bird and her condo...

My suggestion is to print this photo out in color and black and white. The black and white will serve as a readymade value study at your side and that comes in handy for decision making. Be sure to put the bird off center and make sure all 4 sides of your paper offer a difference. Plan ahead to make the
 top of your painting warm and the bottom cool or vice versa.


I used an 11x15 piece of 300# paper and marked off a border so it will fit into a frame I have on hand.
I’m already planning to frame it ( I’m an optimist). I free sketched the bird and nest horizontally but
 feel free to choose the size and orientation you like best. I masked several of the stems and sticks that
dominate the pattern. Next I sprayed water and dropped in local color, Hansa Yellow and Sap Green
with a little Cobalt Blue in the darker areas of the nest.

This is the prepared start of the nest

Notice I left a border on the page and I also saved the background for last. My order is the nest, the bird, then the background. I painted this within a one day time frame. I started with quinacridone gold and some darker browns like Sepia to begin the tangle of straw that holds this nest together. Talk about genius....every color known to Nature was already here. My task was simply to decide which ones to promote. I definitely kept a softer approach as I identified perfect areas for negative painting as well as alternating patterns of the sticks and branches. I used a beautiful mix of Prussian Blue with

 Raw Sienna for some of my greens and a little Quin Red helped to   darken the area that serves as the

 entrance to the nest ( behind Lady Bird) so I also put some in the sticks of the nest.

Here is a little more detail. Now for the Bird. Not that she isn’t important but her house is like a mansion so I wanted her to be softer and maybe a little less in focus. Still, you tell me, I think she stole the show!  I used Cadmium Orange to feature the breast and then added it to the nest as well. I later added the soft background using Cobalt blue and Windsor Violet to pull out my blues in both the bird and the nest.

Enjoy, share and be in touch with Nature...and with me!

Warm regards, Carol Sue