20230225 – Zilpzalp

I really only chose to do a painting of this bird because I thought its name was funny. Also, it fits into the sequence. After doing the Starling illustration, I figured I might as well try to cover the seasons of a new year. The Great Tit for January and the Starling kicks off the song contest in February, Chiffchaff for march … and so on. I haven’t decided yet which bird I’ll do next.

20230223 – Star

The “Star | Common Starling” is one of those birds I have a love/hate relationship with as a visual person. I can never decide whether I like it or not. There’s no harmony between areas of rest and areas of detail. Its base color is black, yet it’s slightly iridescent. It’s somewhat “too much” for me. And all that detail makes it harder to appreciate the forms and shapes.

So for this exploration, I focused on capturing the glitter bomb impression I got from that bird.

w20 2020

It’s been a while since I posted a bird. This one wasn’t based on a specific bird, it’s one of a few sketches I did exploring further simplification and abstraction of general bird shapes.