The Designing of Left Red Chuck with Goldfinch

 I have been asked to give a demo at the Berks Art Alliance this coming Tuesday.  Being that I have had many people ask me about my alla prima technique, I wanted to design a painting that I could do that showcases the techniques I have developed over the past 4 years, and uses imagery that I like and have painted before.   Below I outline the basic process I used to design the reference image I will use during the demo.

1.Choosing a subject, gathering reference images

Image taken by me of my red chucks

Chuck Taylors/Converse all stars, whatever you call them, have been a long time favorite of mine... I've painted them a bunch, both as stand alones and in my Ducks in Chucks series. :) I like chucks mainly because of their iconography, but also because of their myriad colors and great lines and shapes that you find in their design. This is a picture I took of my red chucks.  I opted to use the left one for this painting.

Image courtesy of https://morguefile.com/creative/AcrylicArtist/

 I also enjoy painting birds and I've painted a lot of them...again, many that are straightforward paintings of birds, and others where birds are found in unlikely places. As I am no bird photographer, I searched a royalty-free website called Morguefile for reference images.  After trying out a few other birds, I settled on this guy.  

2. Composing the design (or is it designing the composition?)

Why not put these 2 subjects together?  

Couldn't think of a good reason not to, so, I did!

The placing of the bird...

3. The making of a background
  

After cutting, pasting and arranging in Photoshop, I decided I wanted to throw a background in to just get an idea of what might work. I often just want some abstracted pattern and colors in the backgrounds of these types of compositions,.  Rugs and wall paper are a great source for both and can be found in abundance all over the internet.  They provide a relatively easy way to get an idea of how different colors and patterns will work.  The final background in the completed painting is often a little different than what I initially design in photoshop but it is a nice way for me to quickly solve some compositional problems... For this design, I wanted some vertical energy and muted colors.

Image of a blue and white rug

After putting just the stripes in behind the Chuck and Goldfinch, I layered a few more things on top of the stripes, messed with the opacity, brightness, contrast and saturation levels to lessen the strength of these stripes a bit...

image of a 'neutral' rug

Texture I added using a natural brush in Photoshop

4. Remembering compositional 'rules' and tools

Composition designed in Photoshop

During this whole process, I also pay attention to compositional 'rules' like the rule of thirds, using diagonals to lead the eye, using focal points that occur at major intersections and the like.  The above image shows how I worked out some of these design details.  As a disclaimer, rules like these are flexible, and don't have to be used at all.  I find they help more often than not, though.

5. Checking the Values  

grayscale

 I almost always will check out the image in grayscale to make sure my values are where I want them. If they aren't good in grayscale, they are not going to be good in the colored version either.  They weren't quite right so I did have to go back into the colored version and adjust some levels.

6. Finished Reference

Left Red Chuck with Goldfinch

This is the final image that I will use for reference during the demo.  As you can see, there is quite a process involved in this stage of the game, but I find that the more problems you have resolved before you even pick up a brush, the better the painting is and the easier it is to paint too!  

I don't know if that is really what I will title this painting... I haven't even painted it yet so the title will probably change, but for now, "Left Red Chuck with Goldfinch" is the title of this design. 

Outtakes

Below are outtakes...2 other designs I tried initially, but nixed.  I first thought I would use a sparrow as I like the subtle, understated nature of these birds.  Decided they were a little too understated.  This red chuck needed more of a statement bird.  As it turns out, the goldfinch works nicely when I added the muted blue background as now I have a primary color scheme going on, which I think adds an element of fun to the image. :)

Although... there is something about the simplicity of this one that I like .. might paint this one some day.