Original Watercolor Paintings; How About A Couple Of Birds

Using photo reference

I have always loved birds.  Something about their colors and their confident posture makes them beautiful animals.  When painting birds, you can get really tight and realistic or very loose and borderline abstract.  Because of their colors and the way they seem to blend into each other, both techniques work.  Getting reference material to paint birds however, is much more difficult then you may think.  Really, how often do birds land near you while you have your camera ready to snap a picture in the perfect pose?  How about never.  Since I live in the western suburbs of Chicago, I am near Brookfield Zoo.  They have an indoor bird exhibit that helps with taking photos for reference.  The other way is to use others photographs and draw them free hand making

made up bird

sure not to copy the photograph exactly.  You can not use someone else material without their permission unless you give full credit to the owner of the material.  If someone takes a bird picture for instance and you draw gestural and make your own scene, you are probably ok.  Your painting can not look the same as your reference material.  There is also another way to accomplish a bird painting or any painting at all.  Make it up as you go.  Really, look at birds anatomy from books and online.  Once you have studied their body, draw free hand any shape that resembles a bird.  Use your own color schemes, your own proportions, your own everything.  You never have to worry about copyright violations and it will look artistic which is the actual goal anyway.  It takes some practice, but it is the best way, not just for birds, but for any animal out there.  Never be afraid of something looking silly.  Use each attempt as a lesson learned and pretty soon you have developed your own species that may be really cool to paint and for people to view.  You never really know until you give it a try.  The Cardinal was from reference materials, the other bird is, well some kind of bird I made up.  I don't know if this is close to some bird species or just my interpretation of a bird.  I know it was fun to paint and no one can say I copied anything.