I’ve painted Northern Cardinals a number of times but have only rendered a female once before, as part of a pair. The males are WAY easier to paint because they lack the subtle color shifts found in the females. To get the boys right, just brag up all the colors, and it looks awesome. Choosing a background for the males… well, it seems like you can’t miss. They look great on everything.
You have to work a bit harder on the female Northern Cardinals.The girls sport everything from bright reds and subtle green-browns to orange-tans and brown-blacks. The flight feathers in particular have gentle shifts from pale reds to greenish browns. Getting that right in watercolor takes a lot of glazing (layering thin washes of color). As you can see in the video, these birds are definitely a challenge to render.
I got the photo reference for this painting from our kitchen window on a fall day. I really liked the warm light created by the yellow leaves, and the bird had a noble-looking pose in a few of the shots. My photos had a gray-white sky mixed with yellows, but I chose to add a little subtle blue when making the painting. This invited me to use some blues and purples in the shadows that might have looked out of place with the white-gray sky. Having those cool colors as a complement to the yellows and oranges was really useful for adding interest.
Come to think of it, because I’ve taken so many photos as painting reference out the same window, I’ve probably rendered that tree more than any other single thing. It’s been in dozens of my paintings. Despite the challenges, and perhaps in part because of them, capturing the subtle beauty of this female Northern Cardinal was both fun and rewarding.
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- NEW! The Birder Gift Shop, featuring Bohan Art on a handful of POD items, with more to come
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