One for Life - Original Palette Knife Painting of Birds

Exactly a month back, there was a weekly challenge on DPW. It was on the theme of Valentine's Day and we had to paint a pair of animals/birds that mated for life. Now, I am a sucker for love stories and feel good stories and I just *had* to do this challenge. It was besides a great opportunity to paint swans as I shy away every single time from painting white subjects. White and seeing colours in white gives me nightmares. 

One for Life
Oil on board, 18 by 24 cms (7 by 9.5 inches)
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This painting is based on a reference from morguefile. I loved the lighting in it and knew it was going to be a huge task with all those rocks and everything else. I felt that the palette knife would be good for doing stones and rocks and instinctively started the painting with the knife. This was probably not a great idea that everytime I sat to paint, I was questioning if it was the best approach. But every time I was tempted to pull out my brushes instead, the image kind of screamed to go on with the palette knife. All part of an artist's life. 

Anyway, I continued with the palette knife and I loved the effects it brought out. The shapes in the water and the feathers are all way better in real than in this image. Hope you like it! 

Ms.Glowing beak - Original Bird Portrait in Oils

I loved this bird reference in morguefile. I was looking for some more owls but a few eagles turned up too. No complaints, as I love most of them. This fella was great fun to do and it suited well as an "end-of-palette" piece after my still life yesterday. I could mix a variety of greys with everything that was left over on the palette. How cool is that! 

Ms.Glowing Beak
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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What's up?! - Original Textured Bird Portrait in Oils

What's up?!
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
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I usually shy away from too close crops. This one just drew me in. After a long time, I am so thrilled to be painting birds again and I am having a blast. There are a couple of more birds in the works, stay tuned.

Look at me - Original Palette Knife bird portrait

Look at me!
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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Painted from a reference in morguefile.

Up close - Original Palette Knife Bird Portrait

It's been a while since I painted with the knife, and I was itching to an exclusively knife piece. I wanted to have some fun with a bird portrait, but something that I haven't painted earlier. As I was browsing morguefile, this owl just popped out and said "Paint me!" :-) I could not refuse. 

Up Close
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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30 Paintings in 30 Days - #6

Making heads turn
Oil on board, 18 by 24 cm (approx. 7 by 9.5 inches)

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30 Things about me - #6 - I love painting with the palette knife
Palette knife painting is something I discovered by accident a few years ago. I used to slap paint randomly and really liked the effect. But until last year, I did not pursue it properly. I tried the knife on just about every subject I could find and when they weren't really suited for some, I found myself frustrated. It was then that I decided that I would paint with the knife only when I feel it would work with the image, and not for everything under the sun.

Now I use the knife mainly for doing bird portraits and I find the effects fantastic. The knife gives a texture to the birds that suits the subject so well. There are very many roosters coming this year too.:) I try to mix up paintings with the knife and brushes, so that I don't lose touch with either. Check out a couple of detailed shots below.

Bee Eater - Detail 1

Bee Eater - Detail 2

SOLD - Rooster #5 - Palette knife bird portrait

Rooster #5
Oil on board, 5 by 7 inches
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SOLD - Rooster #4 - Original Palette Knife Bird Portrait

The picture has a lot of glare because it is very wet and thick paint. I will post a better picture a couple of days later when it has dried a bit. :)

Rooster #4
Oil on board, 5 by 7 inches
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SOLD - Rooster #3 - Original Palette Knife Bird Painting in Oils

Gosh the roosters continue to mesmerise me! What gorgeous colours and stunning eyes they have! What attracts me to painting birds, is their eyes. Which is why I do not prefer to paint the whole bird, I love to capture the eye and a close up of their faces. And I absolutely love images of birds looking directly into the cameras :-) 

This was by far the most challenging of the roosters, and one of the difficult palette knife paintings that I have done. Reading values within various shades of red was a huge challenge and at every step along the way, I took a b/w image of my work in progress to see if I am on the right track. So that means I have some WIP images to show you :-) 

Rooster #3
Oil on board, 5 by 7 inches
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Check out the progress of my painting from sketch to finish. I usually directly sketch on my gessoed panels.

Rooster #3 - Work in Progress

Of course, it goes without saying that the rooster paintings would have great presence when hung together. Check out a collage of the 3 paintings so far, though there will be more to come.

Roosters
Oil on board, 5 by 7 inches each
Painted exclusively with the palette knife.

Your feedback is welcome! :-)

Rooster #1 - Original Palette Knife Bird Painting

I have been meaning to paint roosters for as long as I can remember, I love their personalities and colorful bodies. And what more, I know they would make perfect subjects for palette knife painting. So here it is, finally my first rooster. And let's just call him Rooster #1, as I know for a fact that there will be more to follow. Soon. :-)

Rooster #1
Oil on board, 5 by 7 inches
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SOLD - Saffron Toucanet - Original Palette Knife Bird Painting

This little bird was yet another challenge in the group Paint Colorful Birds for Fun, on Facebook. What a lovely bird with such bright colors. I prefer to do them with the palette knife. 

This painting is also my entry to the Premix Color challenge on DPW. So I mixed all the colors beforehand and my palette was fully ready before even touching the canvas. It is completely opposite to how I normally work, I mix colors as I go. This was a great learning, different experience and saved so much time in the painting process itself!

Saffron Toucanet
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
SOLD

Here's an image of my palette before starting painting. This is the neatest my palette has been, ever! 

One thing the premixing process ensures is that we think well beforehand about the values and colors, and don't discover midway that they are way off. I might give it a shot again!

SOLD - Angry Bird - Original Palette Knife Oil Painting

I follow watercolour artist Sharon on facebook, and every month she holds a challenge where artists get to paint from a photo. The last couple of challenges were all animals and I loved looking at various interpretations though I did not participate in them. As I have mentioned a few times earlier, I am not very fond of painting animals. When she posted this eagle for the February challenge, I had made a mental note to take part. I had totally forgotten about it until it popped up again on my Facebook feed. 

I totally loved the reference and at first sight it just screamed "Palette Knife"! So of course, knife it had to be! Also, I have been neglecting my knives for a while now and thought this would be a good opportunity to warm up the knife painting muscle a bit.:-)

Angry Bird
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
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I loved the reference, which is by wildlife photographer Gary Jones. The fire in the bird's eyes begged to be painted and I hope I have done justice to it. Do take a look at the various entries here, they are all amazing! Thank you so much for hosting the challenge, Sharon. It was a blast. 

Tufted Coquette - SOLD

Recently, I came across this group called "Paint colorful birds for fun" on Facebook. A new bird is selected every week and artists have a go at painting it. When you are stuck on deciding what to paint, something like this is a great time saver. It helps me dive right in instead of wasting hours looking at all my references and trying to come up with something "perfect". 

Tufted Coquette
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
SOLD

Song of dusk - Textured Oil painting, a brand new subject!

I have never been drawn to painting animals. I think it boils down to the fact that I am not too much of an animal lover. Birds interest me though, I have sketched quite a few and done a couple of bird paintings way back even when I used to dabble with colored pencils. And I was drawn to these bird images recently, just to give a shot at a new subject. It was also a challenge to myself, just to see how much detail I could bring in only with the knife. And on that count I must say I am really pleased with the result! 

When I paint with the knife, I tend to work really quick, quicker than with the brush. I took it rather slow with this piece, because I did not want to less it up. I wanted to bring in as much detail as possible to the feathers and the form of the bird. What a beauty she/he is! Everything including the eye and the white little dot was done only with the knife and I gave myself a pat on the back. :) 

Song of dusk
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches (palette knife)
© Nithya Swaminathan
$100 and ships free worldwide
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This painting was actually done before my vacation, and I just realized that I had not blogged it at all. And I listed it today on Etsy. I logged in to Etsy after more than a month and was pleasantly surprised to see the changes in the listing process. Listing was Etsy's only pain point and the change is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!

It is a recent favorite of mine, and I would be pleased to hear what you think of this piece.