HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE
So a new year begins and back to work. I have had many ideas over the festive break and cannot wait to get back to some serious artwork production. I started today a large oil painting entitled ‘Blue and Gold Macaws and Swamp Hibiscus’ (there is also a cheese plant bottom left corner). Here is the painted sketch on canvas measuring 40″ by 16″. I shall post progress, but before I begin to paint it in earnest I need the sketch to dry thoroughly so that I do not lose my way once I put colour on. So a couple of days finishing off a water colour illumination which has been kicking around for a few years will bridge the gap. Whilst visiting Banham Zoo between 2012 and 2014 I seriously watched the macaws they have on display – sometimes very grumpy and angry with loud screeches and flutters; and other times gently preening each other and softly clucking. But they are mostly up to mischief so I am trying to depict a sense of their enjoying life as a family group as if in the wild tropical jungle. Resource photographs were taken by me at Banham Zoo with one coming from a golfing friend, Martin Johns, to whom I am indebted. The background compilation is a complete fabrication within my imagination (although some of the plants I have seen), as too is the positioning of the birds.
Blue Macaws and Swamp Hibiscus. Sketch on Canvas done with Light Sepia Oil Paint