Alison C. Board | Brusho Bites: Blackbird Tutorial | SAA Archives

Hello, my name's Ali. Blackbirds, hearing a blackbird up in the trees is the thing that heralds the summer for me, so I thought I would do a portrait of a blackbird for you, share some tips and tricks with you, how you can get it on the paper, give it bags of character. I've got it drawn out on my watercolour paper, all ready to go, I've used the trace down method, and the first thing I'm going to do is give it a nice summery background. In the photograph I've got greens and greys in my background, but I'm going to deviate from that ever so slightly, and I'm going to give it a blue background. So I've got Potter's Blue watercolour here, and first thing I'm going to do is make a nice puddle of that colour so that it's ready to go, adding some water in, making a nice sloppy puddle of that, leaving my brush down there just for a second, and I'm going to use a spray bottle to put some water around the blackbird and then I can drop the blue into it. So give it a good old spray, doesn't matter if some of the water goes on the bird, it's just a nice quick way of getting it down, making your paper wet, picking up that colour, and then painting around the bird. So I'm going to paint a little bit negatively, but it really doesn't matter if some of the colour goes onto the bird itself. Now, one little handy hint that I will share with you, if you want to make black look blacker, make it bluer, or put blue next to it, because that really benefits the black and brings it forward. So that's one of the reasons that I'm using Potter's Blue in the background, and also one of the reasons that if I happen to get blue on this bird at all, it really won't matter. Just putting a little bit of colour around and about in there, around the branch that he's sitting on, adding some water, and then I think I'll just put a little bit underneath here, I think, I'm not going to do too much, because the bird itself is far more important than any background it's against. Just push out that brush, pop in some water, pull it down, actually I'll put a little bit more, let's move that up there a little bit, that's better. And then I can use my screwed up kitchen roll just to take care of the edges of some of that, keep the water under control, and make a nice mottled sky type pattern in the background. Now that that's done, I can add some wax, and the wax actually for this I'm going to put on the branch itself. I want the bird to be really black, really dark and bold, so the wax I'm going to use when I get to painting this branch in, and I'm not really going to do very much, simply because the bird itself is more important, the texture of this branch that he's sitting on can be brought out with the wax. So let's pop that down there, there we go, that's what I'm going to do with that, just nice and simple. One of the ways that I'm going to get this bird to look really black, you've probably looked at black birds before and realised that actually there's very little black on them, there's a small amount, but a lot of it is brown, and some of it is that lovely bluey colour I was talking about earlier. So I'm going to be very brave and I'm going to use black brush-o to do it. And the way that I'm going to do it is that I'm going to sprinkle some of the brush-o onto the bird, make it wet, and then pull it into a shape. But one thing I don't want to happen is that I don't want to get any black into my background. So I'm going to unroll my kitchen roll and just lay it down very lightly around in the background. Let's pop a little bit of it there, and a little bit under the tail and over the branch. That just reserves it so that I don't have to worry. Here's my black brush-o in a little buddy cup I've decanted, and I've got a coffee stirrer. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to pop the coffee stirrer into the black brush-o powder, and then onto dry paper. From up fairly high, I'm going to tap a little bit of this colour, just a tiny amount. If you're worried about your tapping skills, practice this on a piece of paper first. But what I'm not going to do, I'm not going to put too much of it down by his tail because of what I'm about to do. So let's pop that to one side, take it away. Now, because this is on dry paper, what you can do, if it's in the wrong place, you can get a dry brush and you can just move it. So if there's a little bit of it that you think, oh, I'm not happy about that being there, then you can move it before you wet it or spray it. Now, I have got a little bit in my background there, but those are the sort of things that we don't worry about. We're just going to crack on with our painting. So let's get the spray bottle and, popping my hand just over the background, and from on high, I'm going to give this black bird a little bit of a spray. Now, can you see straight away all the hundreds of colours that have come out of that black brush-o? We've got blues and oranges and turquoises. It's very exciting. And I'm going to use my brush to start to move that colour around. I need to avoid his beak a little bit, so let's make sure that we paint around that. And I'm going to start to get that colour in. So let's work over the top of his head, around his eye. Don't worry if, at this stage, it looks a little bit scrappy. There's lots of things that we're going to do to this yet. I'm pulling that colour in and around, combining it with a little bit of translucent grey watercolour, so that he does really look black. Otherwise I'm going to be spending far too long on this and I really don't want to be doing that. Let's get that colour in. I'm trying not to destroy all of the texture that the brush-o has given me, but I do want to get it to a point where my bird has shape. So I've got some texture there, pulling that down into his wing, and you can see all those amazing colours that start to come out. Pulling that down, adding a little bit more of the translucent grey. I've got his beak and the shadow in his mouth to do yet, but I'm not going to worry about that for the time being. Getting that belly shape in. I can always use a bit of my kitchen roll if it's starting to run away with me. Let's add a bit more of that grey in. Pulling that colour down, and now you can see that our black bird isn't all just one flat colour, which is exactly what I was hoping would happen. It then means that our bird has got a little bit more interest to him, and then we've got more to work with. Now while we've got that colour going on, let's feather out the front of him, because he's a very handsome chap, and get that colour in. And whilst that is drying, obviously I need to do lots more other things to it, but that needs to dry fully. I'm going to pull some of that colour just down and around into his feet. I'm only using the tiniest tip of the brush now. Over, and one thing I will do is use some of the translucent grey and some of the potter's blue in together to put the twig that he's standing on. So don't forget I had that wax resist. You can see that working beautifully for me now. To get his branch in, let's get that. So all I'm really doing is giving him a perch, and that's important just to make sure that he's not floating in the middle of nowhere. Now that has got to dry really, really fully now. I could put the yellow beak in, or I could start to put it in, but I would be worried that it would start to bleed into the black, and I'm so happy with the way that the black has come together that I want to leave that to dry fully, and then I've got lots of other things that I can use on top of it to pull him together and to give him personality. My painting is completely dry now, and what I can do is I can start to work on the detail. I can start to bring out some of the foliage, and I've got lots of things here that will help me with that. The first thing I've got is a waterproof sketching pen. These I find absolutely invaluable. I use them every single day, and this is a pen that I can now look at my photograph and start to pick out some of those details that are going to give my bird character. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to look at the bits of the bird which I haven't quite got on there yet. So there's the eye, for starters. I need to put in where his eye is going to go, and his eye is this lovely teardrop shape. Now, I can already see on my painting that I probably should have left a little more white around his eye, but that's OK. That's not a problem with one of the tools I'm going to use later. I'm going to get that in, and I'm actually going to use my pen to shade in the eye so I can start to see what else I need to do. On his beak... Now, his beak is open, which doesn't make it terribly easy, but I can see that here is the line of the top of his beak, and it's coming down that way, and then you've got the open part in there, and then where his plumage meets the yellow of his beak, I can start to bring that out too. So let's pop a line in that goes over there. That's better. Now I can see what I'm doing. And I can use my pen around the top of him so that if there are any places where I think it could just do with tidying up, it'll blend in really nicely with the brush-o. Looking at the bottom of the jawline, I can see that I need a line in there to show where his beak is open, and this part of his jaw is coming in around that side, so I need to fill that bit in with some black in a minute. That's not a problem to do. I've got the underside of his beak to pop in, and on the other side there. Now, actually, in the photograph, if you look carefully enough, you can see that he's got a little tongue sticking out as well, but I'm not going to put that in. Around this side, I have got a bit of black missing, which shows the far side of his head, and I can get that in with the pen, save messing about with any other brush or paintbrush, and I can then look at his head and other areas where I can start to break up some of these lines, and already you can see that you're starting to pull it together a little bit more. Let's get in the wing, let's get some of those shapes in, and the tail. And while I'm here as well, I'll just get his feet in, so if I run out of time at all, he's at least got something to stand on. His feet go all the way round, he's got these fantastic talons on there, and let's pop this back one in, which is gripping hold of that branch and coming round that way. Now that that's in and I've got more of an idea of areas that I need to work on, I can get the yellow in, and that can be drying while I'm working on the next part. I'm going to take some clean water this time and use that fabulous Quinacridone Gold colour, which is perfect for Blackbird Bill. Mix it up with a tiny amount of water. Now I do have to be careful here, because there is some brusho down, but if I just work my way around it slowly and carefully, I should be able to pop that colour in without too much trouble. Now the shadow that's in his mouth, I'm going to take care of with another tool, but it needs to be yellow for the time being, and then I can take care of it in a minute. And obviously there needs to be some yellow around that eye, which isn't perfect yet, but that's okay, it's in there, it's done. And another little trick that I'm going to do is I'm actually going to pop some of this yellow down over the top of the wing. Now why am I doing that? I'm doing that to give another dimension to the black that we had before, and also to bring some unity between what's happening in the top of his head and what's happening at the bottom. And that's just a little painter's trick which helps you to bring your paintings together. I think that's enough of that. What I'm going to switch to now are the pastel pencils. So this is chalk pastel in pencil form, and I've got three colours here. I've got carbon black, chocolate and white. And I'm going to go straight in with the black, and I'm going to use the black to add any areas that I might have missed out previously, so that bit of his beak can be pulled together. I can change the way that my hand works and put it over the top of my pencil instead of holding it traditionally. And I can start to add more black over the top. It will work over the top of damp paper. You don't want it to be sopping wet, but it will work over the top of damp, and I can put some of these shadows in under here. If I want to blend it together, I can use my finger, and what that does is that it starts to give me this lovely kind of plumage, this fluffy quality. If I want a sharp line, I can switch back, but can you see how that starts to bring it all together? It really gives your bird shape. If I switch to the chocolate, you'll see as well that gives another dimension to the colour too. And again, stops it being this very black cardboard cutout and gives it a bit of dynamism. So adding that in. So although it's a black bird, it's fabulously colourful. This is the tool. Shall I see if that's dry? Yes, that's almost dry. This is the tool that I'm going to use to put that shadow in against the beak and make the V shape in there. Use my finger to smudge that out a little bit. That needs some more work, but that's okay because here comes the white pastel pencil, and it's the white pastel pencil. It's just broken off. Give that a bit of a blow. Although that colour around his eye is yellow, we can fool our viewers into thinking that we've actually made it yellow all along by just dropping a little bit of white in there. It mixes it together with it and helps us out. Top of his beak needs to be a bit paler. That can go in, and this all needs to be considerably brighter along there too. Smudge that out and bring that in. So can you see, just with a few strokes, you can start to bring it all together. What do I need now? I need to go back to my... Let's go back to the black and get this shadow really firmly in so it looks like he's singing and get that in. It's quite a tricky little shape to manoeuvre, but that's okay. Getting that back in and pulling that shape out. There we go, that's better. Now he looks more like he's singing. Right, switching back to my waterproof pen. The waterproof pen will go over the top of your pastel, but just occasionally, you may just need to clean the nib off, but I'm going to sharpen and tighten everything up now. So straight away, I'm going to neaten up the edges around his eye so that that really stands out. Bringing that in, and this area of the beak needs more work. So let's use the pen to do that. Making some little dot marks now. I think I've... I don't think I've made this long enough. I think that's why it looks out of proportion. There we go, that's better. And I can sort out my shapes coming around here. There we go. And let's tighten... Actually, one thing I wanted to do was tighten his legs up a little bit. I'm really happy with his body. Actually, I'm not really going to do an awful lot more to that. But I think I need to pay a little bit of attention to his feet, and I need to get a nice, fine brush out to start to address those shadows in his beak. So this is my number two nylon brush, which I'm going to use to start sculpting this shadow in here. Pulling that shadow around and blending it out. There we go, that's better. Could even pop a little bit more yellow in to make that colour a bit brighter. There we go, that's better now. Coming in on the side. There we go, that's starting to come together a bit better now. And a little bit of the translucent grey in... Need a bit more water than that. In and around to describe that lovely feathered plumage around the front of him. So I've only got a few more things to do to this now, but one thing I do need to sort out is putting a little bit more colour on his feet, which I can do very quickly with this fine brush. And then I want to finish off by using the pastel pencil to actually describe the perch that he's sitting on. So I can use the pencil to draw in those edges, and then it's not quite so harsh as the pen. Use it along here. It's going over the top of the wax really beautifully, and I like the way that the colours have merged here. So I can use that to, say, stick, tree stump, branch, whatever you want to call it. Let's pop that in over there and really give him a perch to be standing on. Now, if I had a lot more time, I could play about with this a lot more, but I'm always very aware of over-faffing. I don't want to push it too far, and I'm really pleased with it as it is. So I think the brush show has lent itself beautifully to the fact that his beak is open, and it almost looks like he's singing, which is, of course, why I decided to do this portrait in the first place, because that bird is the thing that reminds me of summer.