Best of the Barnyard 3

Artist's Gallery

Proud to Be a Hen

And . . . what do you think of the finished picture? Just a few more highlights on everything finalized the scene nicely. It's a very intense, color-rich picture, to say the least. I learned a couple important lessons on this one. First, darks and lights make all the difference. Always keep them balanced in your painting. Second, keep background objects loose and light. The grass and logs verge on the edge of being more detailed than the hens, and thus distracting from the focal point. Third, chickens are very delicate creatures which require feathery strokes and moderate amounts of paint. This said, I'm still surprised the picture came out as well as it did! And afterward, my art teacher said, again, that I really should become a children's book illustrator!

Best of the Barnyard 2

Artist's Gallery

Adding Definition

So . . . after another layer of paint, everything is a bit more defined. You can find almost every color of paint on the straw-covered ground, and that corn cob must be some type of monster hybrid! Okay, what I do like about the painting at this point is those logs in the back and the paint texture on the side of the building. The shading and color creates some really nice texture there. By the way, the peeling paint was not natural; my chickens have been pecking away at it for the last three years. I never knew chickens think paint is candy!

 

As for the work on the hens themselves, above you can see that I made that dark hen even darker, now varying from coal black to ebony! This is definitely not the coloring of a Rhode Island Red. So below, in stage three, I tried to add some lighter browns back in. Not there yet, but certainly an improvement. That's the benefit of acrylics: you can always paint it out. The combs proved especially hard, and they came out dark too. And the Barred Rock was worse than painting a zebra; trying to work shading into the white stripes as I moved around its body was not short of tedious! But I'm really pleased with it: the blurrier stripes on the leg feathers and tail make those fluffier feathers look soft. There sure is an art to painting feathers!

Feathers Coming Along

Best of the Barnyard 1

Artist's Gallery

Underpainting

If I asked you to guess one subject I would choose to paint, that I've not touched yet, what would it be? If you guessed chickens, you're right! Chicken Lover + Artist = Poultry Painter. Or, in the words of one of my friends at my art class, I am the "Rembrandt of the Barnyard"! Well, as it turned out, spending hours observing my hens did not seem to improve my poultry painting abilities much.

When I finally decided to tackle chickens, I decided to do my two favorite hens from my first flock: Buckeye and Midnight. I proceeded to follow them around with a camera taking fifty pictures each, and a few of every other hen in my flock "for reference" on the tough spots. Okay, it is kind of hard to get a chicken to pose in that perfect position you want! You can see actual photos of both of them here and here. Above is a watery painted sketch of the scene I wanted. Notice on the brown hen how my shading is already off: the shadows on the wing are much darker than the leg . . . we'll have to see about that one.