Birdtober 2021!
Welcome everyone! This year I decided to embark on my own Painting-a-day Challenge, and I decided to do it for #Birdtober! The rules I imposed for myself were:
No actual work started before October 1st: no cutting or stretching paper, no line drawings, etc
Complete 31 paintings in 31 days—but not forcing a new painting from start-to-finish on each day; my process simply doesn’t allow that
I did have all my reference photos picked out to save myself a little time. I’ll walk you through all the paintings I completed in my challenge. If you were following along on my Instagram, you may have noticed that the paintings were not completed in this order; part of being a watercolour artist is spending (wasting) time waiting for the paper to dry, so in those cases I worked on something else to keep plowing through the workload. Many of these are cropped for display, be sure to click on the image to see the full version! If you are interested in purchasing one (or more!), simply email me and we can get the process started; shipping can be combined!
I think I actually finished my first #birdtober painting on Day 3 but after that I caught up quickly, and I ended up finishing all but the last one about a week ahead of schedule (more on that later). I used the opportunity to play with new materials and styles.
The ducks were the first group of paintings I decided to work on, which may have been a mistake as they were quite time-intensive for a challenge like this. But while I was waiting for everything to dry I worked on line drawings for other pieces. All five of these are watercolour, with a smidge of gouache highlights on the Northern Shoveler piece. Each of these are $85 plus shipping.
The second set of paintings featured several types of wrens. I’ve been wanting to play with this new mixed-media toned paper (Strathmore 400 series in Toned Tan) for a long time, and the wrens seemed a perfect subject to start with. The surface is a delight to work on; very smooth, with some heft to it, and handles controlled paint well (not so much the watery washes, but it’s not actually watercolour paper so that’s to be expected). These are all watercolour and gouache. Each of these is $75 + shipping.
More of that Strathmore paper, this time the Toned Blue version, which I wanted to try with gulls. These are all ring-billed gulls of various ages, watercolour and gouache. Each of these is $85 + shipping.
I am working on establishing a more regular fieldwork practice, and wanted to challenge myself to complete a few plain-air paintings for #birdtober. I did sketchbook work as well, but these are all stand-alone paintings done on location in the field. All are watercolours on hot-press watercolour paper. Each of these is $75 + shipping.
And here’s my vultures! I can’t resist a preening raptor. These are all ink and watercolour. I tried to keep my linework lose but it took a while for me to loosen up; it is very unintuitive for me. Each of these is $75 + shipping.
Here’s another set that took some work spread out over quite a few days to complete. I played with complimentary colours for this set: first a saturated background wash, then a value pattern in a relative-neutral colour made of the two complimentary ones. Afterwards I did some lifting, and once dry I adjusted the local colour as necessary. All of these are watercolour and gouache on 140lb cold-press watercolour paper. Each of these is $85 +shipping.
These next two were a treat to do. Back to the Strathmore 400 series paper. First I laid in the bird with watercolour pencils, which I rarely used and haven’t touched in years. I tried to keep this stage very loose and gestural. Then I went in with a wet brush and spread some of the pigment around; it didn’t bloom as strongly as I thought it would but that’s what experiments are for! Once it was dry I went over it with some gouache, again keeping it very loose and stopping early. Each of these is $85 + shipping.
And the grand finale! I wanted to do a more involved piece to wrap the challenge up, and so this one is considerably larger than the other warbler pieces: it measures in at 12.5 by 9.5 inches. I really liked how the leaves came out in the chestnut-sided warbler piece above, and I wanted to play with that process some more. Watercolour and gouache on 140lb cold-press watercolour paper, original $100.
And that wraps up my month-long painting challenge! I don’t know if I’ll do another one anytime soon, but I’m very glad I completed this one, and I’m excited to keep moving forward with what I learned!
—Missy