Sustained Investigation #7

captives

14''x14''

Acrylic, wire, duck feathers

This particular type of parrot, Lear's Macaw, are endangered because of illegal animal trade. I wanted to show their capture by adding the wire, not by painting it, but by actually stapling wire on top of the painting. I've mainly been focusing on frontal figures and having only one figure in my work. We were required to add more than one figure that weren't frontally arranged. I liked playing with perspective and found it more fun to add more birds.

First, I found a bunch of images of the macaws. Next, I cut the wire so that it would fit over the canvas and marked where the wire lines would fall so that I could paint the claws of the birds to look like they were gripping the wire. Next, I sketched out the birds and then painted right on top of the sketches. I made sure to do the lighter colors first, then added the darker colors. I added a yellow-brown background that contrasted with the blue of the birds. Next, I found some stray feathers from my duck, cleaned them, and painted them blue. I glued these on the wings of the birds. Lastly, I attached the wire using curved nails. I used dark blue, light blue, cornflower blue, and cobalt blue.

I wanted there to be a variation in color, so I started with the light blues and while the paint was still a little wet, went in with the darker blues to add the feather detailing. I added the duck feathers to have texture and to bring my topic together. I was originally going to paint the wire on, but decided it would be better to have real wire so it would give the viewer a better message. My next steps could be adding more duck feathers because I liked how that came out.