#6: Yellow Warbler

"yellow warbler"

Acrylic paint and stick

5"x8"

The subject of my creation is a yellow warbler bird, which is a symbolic bird in Maine. I chose to create this bird because I wanted to play with colors and different important aspects of the bird-like the feathers, which make the bird unique. For this project, I used acrylic paint but added a stick and leaves to the background to connect the material with the subject.

To make this piece, I started first sketching out the yellow warbler bird with a light pencil. Then, on a piece of watercolored paper, I used acrylic paint to mix specific colors of the bird, like yellows and greens. I used a reference image to paint from, matching the colors with the image. I used a large paintbrush for the background and a smaller one to create the bird. Lastly, I used a stick to make a base for the bird to sit on.

Throughout this project, I used color. I did this by using dark and light colors in the background and using brighter colors of the bird in the foreground. This makes the bird stand out from the background. I also used texture, by experimenting with material choice. I added a stick to the foreground to give the allusion the bird is sitting on a branch. I found it hard to paint the background because the colors were not blending well and I wanted the background to originally look like trees. I was also going to do two birds originally to play with subjects, although I decided to only do one. My next steps in this project would be to continue to work on the bird by adding more layers and possibly blend the background better.