Quite a while ago, I had wanted to paint a galah. I love those birds. One can see them everywhere around town and I often see and observe them when I go for my daily walks.
First of all, I would like to say a big thank you to Clement Tang from Flikr for allowing me to use his beautiful photograph as a reference for this oil painting. I really appreciate his generosity.
Well, I'm indeed really glad to have finished this painting. I know I would like to paint more birds in the future but for now, I'm unsure if I am going to do this anytime soon. You see, I discovered that painting feathers was not only very difficult but very challenging to say the least. Consequently, I think I will wait for a while before I try to paint them again.
When I started this painting, I wanted it to have a completely dark background. I tried that in the initial painting (see unfinished painting below), but later decided against it. I thought it was best to keep the sky blue like my reference photograph.
I think it is interesting to see the stages of a painting. In fact, after I had partially placed the black background, I changed my mind and ended up painting 3 different skies, all with different hue of blues. Even the galah had very different colours. Now, no one would guess that they are actually still there, under all the layers of oil paint. This is what I really love about the process of painting, one can always change the size, shape and colour of everything.
I am quite pleased with the results of this painting and I wish I could fly!
This is the initial painting with the very dark background. Perhaps I could have proceeded that way but at the time, it did not look or feel right. Anyway, no regrets now.
OK, back to painting....
PS: Thank you again Clement Tang from Flickr for the reference image.
