Stepping Out Ruddy Turnstones

I spent a lot of time up front in the planning this painting of ruddy turnstones. I had a good amount of reference photos that I had taken and had to decide how to approach painting them. Originally I thought they would be placed in a row boat. That still may happen.

Start in the center

I had this great shaped canvas and was wondering what I could possible do with it. Originally I was thinking elephants but the shape was not quite right for what I want to do. It needs to be a bit deeper for that. Then I remembered all my photos of ruddy turnstones.

The bird in the center was my obvious leaping off point. It just screamed to be front and center. I did a number of thumbnail sketches to lay it from there.

The process was pretty tricky really to keep straight. I flipped some images over to face the opposite direction and then flipped them back to the original photo until I has a pretty good plan. Drew them all out. As I got comfortable drawing them, they started to get bigger. Oops! I had to gesso over those drawings to start over as scale is really important with this one. Finally got it right or so I thought. Back to the gesso and redrew the first bird. Confession: I got carried away and I had bird # 5 in there twice. Apparently I like that one.

Birds can pose?

It continues to fascinate me how birds seem to be able to pose and even smile or portray happiness. These little shore birds are definitely posing. Happy to be at the shore in the sun. Wait, I am always happy to be at the shore too! Their beaks are fixed and yet they appear to be almost smile and be happy. It really comes down to their head tilt and body language. I have painted a lot of birds over the years and continue to marvel at their presence.

When my daughters were young we had a cockatiel as a pet. Our guard bird we called it. It would whistle like crazy when anyone approached the house – Chicklet actually alerted our dog Sadie to get into the action. Interesting enough, Chicklet loved my father. Her routine was different for him. She knew the sound of his car and would wildly whistle and dance to let me know he was approaching.

Click through for a closer look:

Until next time, may your life be filled with wonder

Helen