Costa's Hummingbird acrylic painting

                                                           
                                                            Costa's Hummingbird
                                                                        12"x9"
                                                                   Acrylic/pastel

It is really funny how the mind works.   I think when you are an artist you are always observing things and if we let it the mind subconsciously makes connections.  This picture came about because I watched a video on painting a hummer, am making address changes (boy is that a project, they don't make it easy) and I was thinking about April when the hummers arrive in our area.  I didn't leave them a forwarding address at our old address so am wondering if I will get any here in the new house.    This attempt is sending positive vibes into the stratosphere.   My other birds are so forlorn when we go, they just don't know what happened and it makes me feel bad.  But we are acquiring birds here and of course that pesky squirrel.

Hummers are one of my favorite birds to watch, we have the Ruby throats and they can be pretty vicious at certain times.  But I love to watch all the birds, each with their own personality.  I saw a pretty cardinal on the pasture fence and weeds, and am eventually going to capture it in a painting.

There are approximately 300 hummingbirds species worldwide and only about 12 types make it to North America.  I think this one might be a Costa although I am not sure.  But he does have purple as far up as his head.  They are found in the desert in the Southwest US.

Why the two pics?  When I posted the first one it looked flat to me, I was trying to capture the iridescent look of their feathers, but with regular acrylic paint.  So I dug out my iridescent Sennelier pastels (they are so pretty and I really haven't used them) and decided to hit a few spots.  The blues were pretty, but no purple, hence you get the pinkie version of purple.  Got to go with the flow.  Anyway I think it perked him up.

Ok, so I get points, I found the iridescent pastels but now I have lost my big palette knife that I use as a scraper.  I know I have used it since I got here, but he is hiding!!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a look.













Comments

Joan Tavolott said…
Both of these are lovely, but I have to say I do like the one with the pastel added. It really brings the feathers to life! I am sure you will cultivate relationships with new creatures there.
March 6, 2018 at 5:36 PM
Jane said…
I'm sure the hummers will find you again, and I wish they would find me too LOL but they don't live here :-( You made an amazing painting of this hummer, the feathers look so real, and love the colors ! And as always you inspire me, never think about mixing medias until you remind me :-)
March 7, 2018 at 8:01 AM
Mellowood Gallery said…
This is fabulous Nelvia and I like the one with the touch of pink best too. I hope you get hummers this spring -they are a joy to watch. Too bad about misplacing your palette knife, maybe it ended up where the cookie sheets were - lol.
March 7, 2018 at 10:43 AM
Sheila said…
Last night I was searching for something. (Don't ask me what, I can't remember, OH Lordy!) But I had JUST moved it. I had just put it in a spot where I would know where it was. Yeah right. Ha ha ha. Well I did find it after a few minutes.
Your hummer is so pretty Nelvia. So is the branch acrylic, or is there acrylic under the entire painting? It all looks so soft and lovely, like pastel. Beautiful :)
March 7, 2018 at 2:39 PM
hmuxo said…
Beautiful texture, Nelvia. I definitely like the splashes of pinks... Nice work..
March 8, 2018 at 8:04 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bold woman's portrait

Image
Bold Ok, for today's portrait I went out of the box and decided to try a different look and approach. This is on watercolor paper, I applied a layer of paper collate over it (you can see that some of it started lifting - so got to use more medium to glue it next time)  Anyway then I tried to leave part of that under collage showing, even in the face.  Went back in and applied several more light lawyers of transparent and opaque paint and then put in the hair using my dagger bus.   Gosh that brush makes hair so much easier While this might not the best example what are your thoughts to taking portraits this more dynamic direction? Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.
Read more

Her Highness mixed media woman portrait

Image
Her Highness   I just absolutely loved the expression on this lady and knew I wanted to try to capture her elegance and serenity.  I knew that I didn't want an exact portrait and decided to try another mixed media piece.    I added blobs of paint and used my large scraper to make the areas of color.  Just put paint on a piece of watercolor paper.  Then I inscribed and mixed the colors together with the end of my brush and got all the wavy lines (in real life they actually stand up so there is a 3D effect to the background).  Where I thought I wanted the face I really scraped most of the paint off, and ended up with color blotches and tones, and if you look in the forehead you can sort of see the design that was left.  I thought it would add some variance to the skin tones. I also want to keep her very soft so I tried to stay in the pastel tones, even with the lips.   Once I got shadows and lights added in, and went over it with some skin tone and more blue colors I let
Read more

In The Garden acrylic painting Redo

Image
In The Garden Original painting Well, thankfully I have some folks who tell me what they think.  I value their objective opinions very much and appreciate that they feel strongly enough to tell me when they feel something is off.  In the original painting no one liked the addition of the yellow flower, and felt it pulled the eye and overshadowed the focal point.   Well, I sat on it a bit and starting playing with how I could work it back into the composition.  I wanted the third flower, but I couldn't just really dull down the yellow.  As you an see I ended up making it darker in shadows and then burying it into the foliage.  I like it better because it now looks, to me, like it is part of the picture instead of just being put on in the corner.  Moral of the story, fix it first because it is hard to come in and match colors later. What do you think of the changes - for better or worse? Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.
Read more