A quick overview of key stages in the painting of Moneypenny, a rescue secretary bird from Kenya Bird of Prey Trust, who died in 2015
I had photographed many secretary birds, mainly at the Nairobi National Park, over the years, but always at a distance and never with a telephoto lense, so when I decided to attempt a secretary bird painting I trolled the web and found this amazing photo. It turns out that the photographer was none other than my friend Simon Thomsett, co-founder of Kenya Bird of Prey Trust! He had no idea how National Geographic got hold of it but gave me his kind permission ti use it.
Compositing, in this case was as simple as clearing the background, cropping in tight and creating a solid blue background panel.
I very quickly laid water up to the outline of the subject silhouette and blended wet-on-wet the colors, using Prussian Blue, Cerulean Blue, Sap Green and Veridian Green, then dropped in some blooms for effect. I then glazed over to mute the bloom contrast.
I started with the eye and Moneypenny's striking red and orange makeup. Secretary birds have very long, luxurious eyelashes, which I painted in black gouache One of the very rare times I ever use black paint from the tube!). I used aquarelle pencils and gouache to highlight the pebbled skin. this is the only part of the painting that uses gouache or aquarelle. The rest is 100% pure watercolor, meaning every feather is highlighted in reverse, leaving delicate whit etendrils of clear or lightly tinted paper to "lift" each feather from its darker background. It's time consuming, tense and tedious work, But I enjoy the unique pure result. I admit I'm something of a watercolour snob.
I loosely blocked in the base layers for the secretary bird's gorgeous crest of black and grey quills.
I darken the crest quills and paint individual feather barbs with a #3 round brush.
I carefully painted around each of Moneypenny's long soft neck quills to leave the paper as the white color and began the many small soft chest feathers.
I laid in the larger, crisper chest feathers, using Burnt Umber, Van Dyke Brown and Paynes Grey, then lined in the barbs.
The large, ruffled coverlets required many layers of glaze and massive numbers of finely painted parallel feather barbs, paying careful attention to the reference photo to capture the shadows, colours and textures.
The black for the primary feathers was mixed using Burnt Umber, Van Dyke Brown, Prussian Blue and Payne's Grey. I almost never use black out of the tube. It is a dead colour and there is no true pure black in nature. By mixing my own blacks, I can also control the warmth of coolness of the tone. I created blooms for texture and fine-lined the feather barbs, even though many won't be obvious on tope of the deep base tones.
My friend Simon, one of the world's leading raptor experts, always serves as my visual proof reader when I am painting birds of prey. For this piece he pointed out that I had missed the defining, small ridge near the base of the upper mandible, that the beak was nowhere near sharp enough and the nostril slit was too compressed. Thanks, Simon, for keeping my work accurate and credible!
The finished piece captures, hopefully, the stern majesty of this walking raptor. Secretary birds are unique among raptors in that they stalk their prey from afoot. They have exceptionally longs legs, with black knee length feathery "pantaloons", and stand as high as four feet. They prey on small mammals and lizards but are renowned for hunting snakes, which they kill with lightning fast kicks. They can kick faster than a snake can react!
I had photographed many secretary birds, mainly at the Nairobi National Park, over the years, but always at a distance and never with a telephoto lense, so when I decided to attempt a secretary bird painting I trolled the web and found this amazing photo. It turns out that the photographer was none other than my friend Simon Thomsett, co-founder of Kenya Bird of Prey Trust! He had no idea how National Geographic got hold of it but gave me his kind permission ti use it.
Compositing, in this case was as simple as clearing the background, cropping in tight and creating a solid blue background panel.
I very quickly laid water up to the outline of the subject silhouette and blended wet-on-wet the colors, using Prussian Blue, Cerulean Blue, Sap Green and Veridian Green, then dropped in some blooms for effect. I then glazed over to mute the bloom contrast.
I was not happy with the background. The texture would be too distracting and it was too dark, so I overpainted the whole area in a Cerulean Blue/Sap Green mix in flat gouache. Better!
I started with the eye and Moneypenny's striking red and orange makeup. I painted her luxurious. long eyelashes in black gouache. I used aquarell pencils and gouache to highlight the pebbled skin.
I loosely blocked in the base layers for the secretary bird's gorgeous crest of black and grey quills.
I darken the crest quills and paint individual feather barbs with a #3 round brush.
I carefully painted around each of Moneypenny's long soft neck quills to leave the paper as the white color and began the many small soft chest feathers.
I laid in the larger, crisper chest feathers, using Burnt Umber, Van Dyke Brown and Paynes Grey, then lined in the barbs.
The large, ruffled coverlets required many layers of glaze and massive numbers of finely painted parallel feather barbs, paying careful attention to the reference photo to capture the shadows, colours and textures.
The black for the primary feathers was mixed using Burnt Umber, Van Dyke Brown, Prussian Blue and Payne's Grey. I never use black out of the tube. It is a dead colour and there is no true pure black in nature. By mixing my own blacks, I control the warmth of coolness of the tone. I created blooms for texture and fine-lined the feather barbs, even though most simply won't show up against the deep base tones. Secretary birds have very large wings, but they rarely fly, preferring to walk, like a scholar with arms behind their back across the savannah, searching out ground prey.
My friend Simon, one of the world's leading raptor experts, usually serves as my visual proof reader when I paint raptors. For this piece he pointed out that I had missed the defining, small ridge near the base of the upper mandible, that the beak was nowhere near sharp enough and the nostril slit was too compressed. Thanks, Simon, for keeping my work accurate and credible!
A photo of an actual Little Sparrowhawk, "Sax" rescued by the Kenya Bird of Prey Trust
The finished piece captures, hopefully, the stern majesty of this walking raptor. Secretary birds are unique among raptors in that they stalk their prey from afoot. They have exceptionally longs legs, with black knee length feathery "pantaloons", and stand as high as four feet. They prey on small mammals and lizards but are renowned for hunting snakes, which they kill with lightning fast kicks. Secretary birds can kick faster than a snake can react!