Brush Painting Class #3

 We did a generic bird yesterday.  The bird shape is a combination of an egg shape (body) and a sphere shape (head).  The approach is to first do the chest/belly with a light stroke, and then complete the egg shape using a series feathering strokes.  Then do the head using a dark ink tone with two strokes, one for the top and front of the head, the a small stroke for the lower head, leaving a gap for the beak and eye, by a dash and a dot.  The positions for these determine the orientation of the head.  Use dark ink strokes for the wing feathers.  Then a blunt stroke for the tail.  A few dashes indicate the feet below the belly.  Then a branch to anchor the bird.

We use the bird as an interest elements in a bigger picture.  We chose a waterfall background.

After the ink work, we added color; the color sets off the white.  Otherwise the white of the waterfall will not show.

In the next class, we shall demonstrate another wash on top of this, to produce the mists and atmosphere, and to integrate the composition.