Little Hummy Painting

I had thought this painting was finished a couple months ago, but I added to it again a couple days ago. Originally, the background was quite a bit lighter with more blue and green in it. I took this into my painting class and it is a good example of how the useful feedback enhances my mostly finished work. The instructor suggested I glaze the entire background with a darker color but leave some highlights above the bird. This way, there is a nice contrast because the bird is dark on top and light on the bottom, so the background looks nice being dark on the bottom and light on top. I totally agreed with him and am pleased with how it has turned out after the new enhancement.

My final glaze started with predominantly ultramarine with a bit of raw umber. I followed that with a heavy glaze of a predominantly raw umber with a bit of ultramarine mix. At the end, I rubbed out some of the glaze above the bird. I love the colors in the background. This is one of the many reasons why I paint in oil. You just don’t get the depth of color and luminosity with acrylics.

This painting is 6 x 6 inches and is painted on a wooden board and does not yet have an official title. Square shapes tend to be challenging from a compositional stand point, but I think this result worked out well. Composition is one of my most focused considerations when I am selected a subject. It both has to have the right fit and balance, and also be a subject with some personality and emotion. This makes subject selection a bit challenging as I am not inclined to just grab some fruit. Although, every now and then, a very gifted painter can make fruit amazing. I used to real a blog by a guy who did small life paintings that were amazingly creative and inspirational…sadly, he has recently pulled his blog down, but he would do things like paint two pears, one keeled over as if dead with a fork stuck in it, and name it “Hamlet”…he is awesome.