How to paint BIRDS The Majestic WEDGE TAILED EAGLE Oil Painting Tutorial

Hi there, how's it going? Andrew here with another painting tutorial and this week we're going to be painting my favorite bird of all time, the wedge-tailed eagle. Now wedge-tailed eagles are fascinating creatures, they are majestic, they are huge, they've got some incredible colors and I've got a jam-packed tutorial painting this magnificent creature with a few tricks that you can try in the studio. Anytime you get the opportunity to paint a bird it's great to study them from life if you can and get some really good photographic reference. Well I had a fantastic opportunity to catch up with Martin Scuffins at the Lee Valley Sanctuary. He had a few birds there where he was using these birds as educational and display animals to help educate the public as to the plight of some of Australia's native raptor species. On the mainland they're not endangered, in Tasmania they are considered to be endangered now, partly because they clear old growth forest in Tasmania. The Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle is very dependent on old growth forest so habitat destruction down there is a big problem for the Tasmanian subspecies of the wedge-tailed eagle. Very good eyesight, an eagle can see a rabbit from about one and a half kilometers away so roughly speaking their eyesight is three times better than our own eyesight. Now when I had a look at these creatures it was great opportunity for me as an artist to get a little bit more information as to how these birds are put together. You see it's all well and good to find a good photograph to copy from but when we can see an eagle doing these pirouettes on a branch in front of us then we can see so much more about how the feathers work, how they layer over one another and how light falls across the entire form. Now I've talked a little bit about the reference material and it's great to have some good photographs to refer to but what also helps is having that video because I know at any moment I can pause that video and focus right in at the bird at any given moment to get an HD image and some really unique reference that I might not have thought to capture on the day. So having that to refer back to is really crucial for me because I'm making up this composition from a lot of different sources sometimes we're going to have to get a little bit creative to gather reference for the supporting elements. So here with this composition I knew I was going to have some branches in the background maybe some twigs and leaves behind the eagle and so for that I was going to have to create a rig within the studio, match the light angle, find some branches and leaves laying around and then recreate this entirely. So here I have a collection of images that I can refer back to in the painting process just to see the way the light falls across the branch but also the way the light reflects off leaves and catches edges of twigs. Now throughout this tutorial I'm going to be using Langridge Olio Gel and Langridge Impasto Medium. I'm really loving these two mediums at the moment. They're giving me a really nice traditional feel with the paint. They've got a great flow and body to them. If you're using the Olio Gel remember you want to keep those layers nice and thin so I'll reserve the Olio Gel for the block-in layers but then for the later layers and adding to that block-in I'm going to start to introduce a bit more Impasto Medium. Now the Impasto Medium you can layer over the top of the Olio Gel and that's going to retain our brush marks and we can allow a little bit more thickness to come through in our brushwork. Anytime I'm mixing medium into my paint I'm not going any more than one part medium to three parts paint or two parts paint. If I overextend it I might run the risk of maybe some cracking or crawling or maybe a bit of discoloration with yellowing. It can happen if we get too much medium for our paint. Now I'm using a lot of different brushes in this demonstration. I'm using mainly Rosemary and Co and you can find them by checking the link in the description below. Now sometimes I like to draw digitally and sometimes I prefer to draw in the sketchbook. It just depends what kind of mood I'm in but for this painting I thought it might be a good idea to just stick with the digital process because I'm so anxious to get stuck into painting. I know this is going to be a really fun project and I can't wait to get started. So again I'm pausing the HD video to find some unique positions of the eagles using the female and the male Yerram that you see here which has a slighter build but great character. This is giving me some ideas for the position of the wings sitting slightly off the body but also showing off some of that great plumage like these primary feathers that trail off as the wings hang around the side. I've got some great images to refer to for the feet as well as the head and the beak. Drawing digitally into Adobe Photoshop's Elements editor I'm going to have these wings sitting slightly off the body referring to this paused bit of video. This is a gestural drawing just to give me a rough idea of the character of the bird. Then I can do a slightly enlarged version of the head just to the side to try and work out what the character of the eagle is going to be. For an animal like this the character is all in the eyes so I focus a lot on that area. Now the thing I really love about drawing digitally is it allows me to get a result really quickly. I must admit though it's not quite as good as drawing directly in pencil. Its only advantage at the moment for me is just the speed of it. I still love that feel of pencil on paper but I was so anxious to get into this painting that I wanted to know if this idea was going to work right away because I just wanted to get stuck into that canvas. So it's time for me to do a mock-up of the overall image and you would have seen from the design process video that I uploaded a few weeks ago that this is a process of drawing the same image over and over and over again and then making changes as the image develops and progresses. I'm asking myself three questions as I go through this process. What's working? What's not working? And what if? And this allows the painting and the design of the painting to take on a really interesting character and you never really know where that idea is going to go. You'll find yourself quite surprised at times of the type of image that you can make and you realize the possibilities that you can find with your painting. Now I'll redraw the same image at least four times making changes each time and here what I've done is just changed the background, adjusted the shape of the head, and then changed the direction of the look of the eagle. So a digital drawing like this with these four little panels here would take me about 20 to 30 minutes. Not bad for getting a clear idea of where the painting needs to go. So as you look over these you can see the progression and the changes. I've applied a little bit more detail to the last panel just to get an idea of how that light's going to shine on the feathers. Now once I'm happy with that fourth panel I go ahead and I work this up as a larger digital drawing to really nut out this idea. I'm going to include some of those twigs behind and then really delineate where those feathers are going to go on the wing and try and focus on my three-dimensional form and variation in the shading. This is my opportunity now to inform the final parts of the painting process. I am going to refer back to this digital drawing as reference in itself. But once I'm happy with my composition of my drawing I grid it up and I'm ready to transfer it to canvas. But we're not quite ready to start the final painting just yet. There's one more step in this design process and that's a color study. So this is a smaller version now of the bigger painting. Now a color study is so vital to me in my particular process because it allows me to know not only what the lines in the composition are doing but also the tones and the colors. So at every point in this painting process I'm painting with hindsight. I know if the painting is going to work or not because I've already been there and if changes need to be made they can be made at any step in this process. So here I imagine that the eagle has landed on this branch and there's some eucalyptus leaves blowing behind it and it's got a little bit of an Aussie character given to it by these branches behind the bird. We can tell where it is and it's put into a context with this one prop within the painting. So I'm fleshing this out really loosely, really broadly and I'm just getting an idea of how that light is shining on the bird and it doesn't have to be detailed. The idea of a color study is that it's nice and loose and it just gives us an idea about where the final needs to go. So I grid up my canvas to scale to match the digital drawing and the color study and then draw across following that digital design where the eagle needs to occupy space on the canvas. Now I'm drawing this in over a black primed canvas using titanium white and then I'm going to rub back those grid lines so they don't show through in the block-in portion of the painting. Again with my process I start with whatever's furthest away, whatever's in the background. So this of course is going to be the sky. I want to communicate some of this storm cloud color and my main colors that I'm using for this combination are ultramarine blue, burnt umber, quinacridone magenta and titanium white. I get a nice loose and mottled surface using some big brushes. The idea with blocking in is we're starting really loose. We're going to allow this layer to dry and then we're going to layer over the top of it. In the past when I've been painting birds I've had the tendency to really tense up and go too detailed too quickly. So here with this painting I'm making a conscious decision to make it a little bit looser and a little bit more painterly with some bold brushwork. So I'm using my wedge number eight brush here which has got a great angle to it which gives me a nice versatility of marks and I'm able to control these brushes to get some finer lines and even communicate the direction of the feathers. So the red colors you see coming through here are predominantly burnt sienna. I'm mixing this with a little bit of burnt umber as well as ultramarine blue. So I'm really challenging myself here not to get too small with the brushes, trying to keep them as large as I possibly can. If I do use a smaller brush like I'm using here I'm going to use it just to form the lines to communicate where the feathers are going to go and they'll revert right back to that bigger brush again. So feather texture is really built up layer upon layer so here in the beginning stages it's going to be nice and broad and very loose in terms of mark making and then we might get a little bit more refined later down the track. Now because the oleo gel that I'm using as my medium is still wet and it will be wet for the next three or four days it means I can work this surface. My block-in is just about finished with the bird but I can go back and rub out some of these areas where the branches and the leaves are going to go. So I'm using a t-shirt for this with just the end of my finger just wiping clean those areas where the leaves are going to be trailing in the wind just behind the eagle and then I can mark in where the branches are going to go and come down and meet that bird. Now if I decide I want to move a branch no worries I can just scrub this area out and then reapply the paint in the background. I felt this one branch behind the head was just a little bit too much and too distracting in terms of the vectors behind the bird. Now having some great reference material to work from is key and I'm using these shots that I took in the studio from a similar light angle so that it matches the light shining on the eagle and I'm using these really to communicate those changes in angle and the variation in the tones of the green. It's very easy to end up with a monotonous pattern here in the background but I wanted some interest and to have different marks here would communicate a little bit more of that leaf texture. Also by not making every leaf perfect or evenly spaced it gives a little more sense of reality. I like these dead patches on the leaves as well as those different shifts in green almost into that brown helps it tie in with the eagle as well. And when it comes to the branch and those feet sitting on the branch I'm looking at these photographs that I took in the studio of a different branch than what the eagle was sitting on. I felt I didn't really want that eagle sitting on a solid post like it was on the day but this photograph is helping me get that curve in those claws so that it sits around in this three dimensional form. It's really important that our subject feels like it's part of the scene and it's holding on to that branch. So I'm using all of these as tools but not following them exactly. Now you've heard me say it so many times before but I'm just going to say it again. I love these dagger brushes because you can make a line, you can make a point or a broad shape. It's great for this block-in stage because it allows me to cover this ground quickly but also if I need a bit more control then I have that control built into the brush. Now the block-in layer is completely dry which allows me to go over the top with modeling and we're going to skim through this a little bit quickly but I just wanted to show you here just how thick that paint is. Again I'm making a conscious effort to make this a little bit more painterly and a little bit more impasto. It's got to come through so I'm going to have some of that texture still showing through and I like these broad marks. I want the image to completely dissolve in front of you as you look at this up close and then all of the brush marks seem to gel together when this painting is going to be viewed from a distance. At least that's my hope anyway. Now that I'm working with the block-in I make some adjustments. I need to thin this bird down because it looks like it's eaten Eric Cartman. There's really no such thing as a mistake though when you're painting this so long as you catch it before it leaves the studio. So I continually work into the surface and layer upon layer and I like to have the paintings hang around for a little while so I can make these adjustments. Now working with the feet and focusing on these claws there's something about cylindrical shapes interacting with one another. What you'll see me do is lay down contour lines to get these toes to curl and once I have these lines in place and a nice solid base then I'll start to apply some scales. Now you can see here just how thick that paint is. Once I know the location of a scale on a toe what I'll do is just allow a little more thickness to come out and that thick mark is going to catch the light. The shadow cast by that brush mark is going to communicate the gaps between the scales. Now it might look like a little bit of a mess when we look at it this close but when you step back hopefully it'll give you a convincing sense of reality like that eagle foot is really gripping the tree. So again my process is split into three stages blocking in, modeling, and then detail. So we're into modeling now working over that dried block in layer. This gives me the opportunity to deepen some of the tones as well as get more of a subtle transition in grays to communicate a bit more three-dimensionality in the form. Now in terms of light and shadows sometimes we have the tendency to allow our shadows to go too dark. The furthest dark that I can go is black or the black that I'm mixing on my palette anyway which is a combination of phthalo green, quinacridone magenta, and burnt umber. Now that's as dark as I'm comfortable going with this painting. If I bought a tube of black I could use that potentially. So that means if that's the bottom of our tonal range then I need to work slightly above that to allow for any transition to appear. So to get some of these mid-tones in the shadow I've got a little bit of titanium white coming through and that cool blue that you see is just a bit of ultramarine. This mixes beautifully with that burnt umber and burnt sienna of that rusty crest that this eagle has. So far I'm happy the character is really starting to emerge and these brushes are really helping me just to flesh out where those colors go. But the most important aspect of this bird is the character that resides in that head and the angle of the gaze as well as the angle on that eyebrow and the beak. So I'll continually adjust this area until I'm happy with that character. The angle at which the beak exits the head is something I'm going to need to pay really close attention to. I've adjusted it a couple of times already within this process but once I'm happy with it then I'll go ahead and flesh out that eye. So I've got titanium white, a little bit of yellow oxide and burnt sienna forming the red color of the iris and the pupils knocked in there with a bit of phthalo green, quinacridone magenta and burnt umber. I'm using a little bit of titanium white and burnt umber to form some of the lighter fleshier parts of the eyelids and the beak and the lip and then blending this into the end of the beak. You can see right now that this is a really loose painting. I'm only going to refine it a little bit more from here. Again this is the sort of painting that's going to look better from a distance at about 10 feet than it is when you're right up on it about one foot away. I don't want it to be detailed. I'm trying to loosen up here and get a little bit more of that impressionistic quality. So there's a concept here that I've been playing with called economy of stroke which basically means that I'm holding back and I'm not trying to overstate things but try and state them as simply and cleanly as possible with a minimal amount of brush strokes. The sky highlight on the back side of that eyeball allows it to achieve a bit more of a glassy look. This is titanium white with a little bit of ultramarine blue and then for a little bit of sunlight on the head a bit more titanium white but again as always I'm going to save my tonal best for last. This will be as bright as I'm going to go within this stage. Reworking just a few of these brush marks to make sure it still communicates that feather quality. I'm going to leave the head right about here and then finish this off with the detail phase. After a couple of days the oleo gel and the impasto medium sets up a little bit of tack. It's not quite dry but it's a bit sticky so it's allowing some marks to be layered over the top and it's grabbing really well but it's not mixing into the next layer so this allows me to mark out the darker marks between feathers and start to communicate this complicated pattern here on the wing. What we have is a series of dark marks where the center of the feather is and then a lighter edge around the outside of the feather but then we also have this transition of tones and colors as the wing curves into the light so you'll notice this blue tinge towards the middle section of the wing as that's facing the sunlight. Now dark or black feathers are going to turn slightly blue as they face the light. This wing is ever so slightly iridescent but not as much as the hornbill in that painting that I've done recently and you can find that tutorial here on YouTube as well. We're not going for a really saturated color here just a slight blue gray will communicate that light and I have to rebuild this into the painting because the light was not visible on the day so I've got to kind of make this up a little bit but I've had some great reference to work from from the day of the photo shoot at the bird sanctuary which is making it easy for me to find the location of these feathers. Now I'm working both the center of the feather and the outside simultaneously and the outside of the feather here is a combination of titanium white yellow oxide and a little bit of burnt sienna and some of the areas I'll go back and rework some burnt sienna and yellow oxide with a little bit more saturation and I'm trying to blend these marks in so that they fit in within that wing zone. I'm really trying to resist the temptation to get too detailed but here I'm using a number two filbert bristle brush which is giving me a little bit more control with my line making. Now it's important when painting birds to not make them look too perfect. I've certainly fallen into this trap in the past and I like in this reference that there are some feathers missing showing that white plumage underneath the cover and the feathers on the shoulders so I'm going to include this in this bird portrait here and I think it'll give it a much more natural look. Now as we zoom into this wing you can really see how the accumulation of brushstrokes works and how that light is starting to shine on the wing itself. It's just a subtle glow from the sun above but while this paint's still wet I can blend back and forth across these feathers and allow them to tie into one another. I'm paying very close attention to the way one feather overlaps another yet at the same time trying to keep my marks nice and loose. Some of these feathers have got a little bit of a darker shadow so I'm going to kick this in towards the end of the modeling section. It's all about an accumulation of brushstrokes giving it an illusion. To achieve a little bit more red I'm going to use some cadmium red mixed with burnt sienna and yellow oxide for just the tips of the feathers on the crest. To get a little bit more deep tone just the end of a dagger or a wedge brush mixed with phthalo green, quinacridone magenta and burnt umber will help me achieve a near black and this will allow those sharp features on the face to come through. Now what I've found with detail over the years that I've been painting is that detail is an illusion. That illusion is carried by just a few brushstrokes and the pattern is filled in within the viewer's brain so you only have to put in a few strokes here and there and the viewer will literally complete the picture themselves within their own mind. That's something that I find insanely cool about painting. So what I have here to communicate the curve in the wing is a series of different shades. Now every feather has got a darker tone towards the center and a light perimeter around it. Now in order to get that curve what we have to do is mix a lighter tone and a darker tone and have a relationship between those two colors for the highlight and then shift this and transition this down as that wing curves into the shadow and thus our highlight is going to be a little bit darker and our shadow is going to be a little bit darker. Now that might seem rather elementary but what I've seen people do and also what I've had the tendency to do when I painted in the past is every light tone and every highlight would be the same color and there'd be no variation or transition there and the same would go for the shadows. So to communicate that three-dimensionality we've got to pay very close attention to the location and that relationship between light and dark. It's really crucial. I'm pretty happy with the surface so far. We just need to adjust a bit more of that sheen and glow on the feathers and titanium white with just the edge of the wedge brush a little bit of ultramarine blue and then zooming in here you can see by holding back with our tone we can then always go up in that tonal scale. So here a little bit more titanium white's coming through and just on that lead edge of the wing where it's catching the sunlight this will allow me to communicate that sheen off the wing and it's going as a cool color in the center of the feather and as a warmer color on the edge of feather. Now I want to get a bit more of an energetic look to this bird and a little bit more of a ruffled nature so I'm going to be referring to my photographic reference and picking up a few of these feathers that I noticed in one of the video clips that have blown on the back of the crest. This I feel is really going to help the look of the eagle and make him feel like he's sitting on that branch in a gust of wind. Now I'm really happy with the painting and would believe it's nearly finished. It's been drying for two weeks here and I was happy with the way all of the tones were looking but I've discovered after a couple of weeks of air drying that the surface has become mottled between gloss and matte. Now this can occur when areas of the painting soak up oil and other areas repel it and it sits on the surface. This will result in a patchy appearance so the way we get around this is with either glazing, oiling in, or applying a retouch varnish. So what I'm going to do here with this painting now that it's dry is I'm going to apply that retouch. Now I keep my retouch varnish in a little skull bottle because it makes me feel like a badass while I'm painting. I'm going to pour out just the amount that I need in a small jam jar. These jars are great because they don't tip over so easily. They're nice and shallow. I'm only going to pour out what I need. I'm going to do this in a well-ventilated studio. I've got my vent fan turned on and I'm wearing some latex gloves to avoid any skin contact. Now I'm using a Rosemary & Co brush here that's nice and soft and this is going to help me brush that varnish in through the grooves between brush strokes and flatten out some of the areas. I don't want a huge accumulation of varnish on the surface. I'm working carefully in patches and zones and I'm only going to retouch where the eagle is. Now in the past what I've done is painted right the way across the painting but this is not really what retouch varnish is designed for. It's only supposed to relieve those areas that have been sunken in. So I'm going to be applying this to the bird only, especially in those areas of the darkest tone in the shadows between feathers. So I'm just going slowly and carefully and I'm checking in the reflection of the light to see what areas have accepted the varnish and what areas are still repelling. Now working my brush and the bristles back and forth like this allows me to work that varnish down into the surface to make sure that it penetrates. Now retouch varnish is a solvent base with a little bit of ketone resin. The surface remains open if we look at it at a microscopic level so it means that the painting will continue to dry through this layer. It's by no means a final picture varnish. It's just a temporary measure to remove some of that patchiness. You can see here as I apply it just how dark these tones can go and how far they've shifted from when I've originally laid down that color. This brings the bird back to life. Now if I use a really stiff brush for this job like I've done in the past, what it can tend to do is work up that surface and break down the surface. So using a nice soft brush and just going a little bit at a time only using the smallest amount of retouch and brushing across the tops of the brush marks as well as down in the grooves between those brush strokes. It's going to help me get a nice even surface without lifting the paint. So just going one little patch at a time and checking where I've been with the reflection that's shown. But here on the head you can see just how much this bird comes back to looking like it was when I originally painted it. Those dark tones really show up nicely and they register the way I intended. So retouch varnish can really help and I prefer using retouch rather than oiling in. Oiling in can sometimes change the color but this ketone resin that's in the retouch in the solvent base means it's not really going to shift because there's nothing in there that has a yellowing component to it. I should also mention that I have a rag handy while I'm doing this because I'm continually wiping off that brush to make sure I don't have any excess varnish on the brush or also on the surface. If I have an accident here on the surface and I get a puddle of varnish anywhere I can soak it up with the rag or I can lift it out again with that brush. With these final touches the painting is finished. This has been a really fun project to work on. I enjoyed working from the eagle in real life and taking some live video reference and photographic references to inform the painting process. But the painting itself has taken on a different character from my normal work in the sense that it's a little bit more painterly and I've been a bit more expressive and bold with my mark making. The thing that I really love about painting is that you're always learning something and there's always another rung on that ladder. I can't wait for the next picture and what I'm going to learn in that one. Now I really hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and if you did then hit that like button for me and if you want to come back for more make sure you subscribe to this channel. As always you can find me on Instagram and Facebook but also make sure you're subscribed through my website at www.andrewtichler.com for bonus content. I'll see you again next time. So long.