My latest commission, finished for Christmas 2024. A large red kite painting inspired by Wales’ national bird.
Painted for a client with a passion for Wales’ red kites and to remind him of seeing these wonderful birds in and around south west Wales. My client and I designed it together, adjusting and fine tuning the layout, choosing individual birds from over 150 different red kite photographs, then moving and positioning them to make the perfect composition. This painting was a joy to work on. Read more below….
The finished painting: David’s Red Kites, 36 x 24 inch, oil on canvas.
Stage 1 was to place and arrange a dozen or so red kites into the landscape, the birds were taken from photographs I’d taken at Bwlch Nant y Arian red kite feeding station, here in west Wales.
Stage 2 was to keep changing those birds, and their size and position, until it made a pleasing composition.
Stage 3 was more of the same, we decided to change some of the kites again. Compare the image above with the one above that, and you’ll see we changed the birds on the right completely, to make a much more dynamic composition.
Stage 4, and with the final composition decided, it was time to start putting the red kites into the painting.
Stage 5, and something I always do with a precise composition like this, is to apply a grid to the reference image in Photoshop. I then paint on a very loose grid onto the painting, using very thin paint. This helps me place the birds in roughly the right place, give or take a few millimetres.
Once all the red kites were painted in, it was a matter of tweaking and adjusting all the birds until I was happy. I didn’t really concentrate on one bird for too long, but instead moved from one bird to the next, depending on what colour paint I had on my brush. So if I had a dark colour on my brush that worked well for the underwing on the main bird, I’d immediately go to another bird with that same loaded brush and paint the dark bits required on that bird too. Then repeat the same process with all the other colours I used.
Note: the tower, or folly, in the background was made up, and added to give a little more interest.
I hope you like the result.
Happy painting!
Chris
