Kookaburra on Antenna

STEP ONE

I usually start a new painting by looking through my stored digital photographs, on the computer, that I have taken over the years. Today I selected the kookaburra on the TV antenna photo because I like the contrast of the hard, geometric shapes of the antenna, opposed to the soft curves of the bird, nature-made verses man-made. Also, I wanted to do a small painting, as more detail can be seen after the image is reduced to fit on a page.

STEP TWO

I opened the photographed image of the kookaburra on the antenna in a photo-altering computer program. I then scaled the kookaburra close to life-size, added a 2cm yellow grid on top and cropped away the unwanted background to form my composition. I ended up with a painting size of 22 x 28cm.

Next I made some adjustments to the image. I didn’t like the bird’s beak touching one of the antenna arms, so I tilted the head a bit. I also didn’t like all those antenna braces, because it looked too busy, so I removed a couple. The vertical post behind the bird was too high, so I lowered it. I thought a little colour would be good, so all the black plastic fixtures on the antenna were changed to a crimson colour. To create depth, I added some clouds on the bottom and put the moon in to balance the composition. I have photos of clouds and a moon already to use as reference.

Next, I printed