making - part two

Last time I wrote about how much I loved watching the local jackdaws playing in the air on a windy day. Their exuberance was inspiring to me, and I decided to make a painting of them.

Although I have an idea of what I am creating in my head, I don’t really visualise images in my mind’s eye, and so this stage is about considering how my painting is going to look. I printed lots of little pictures of corvids flying, cut them out, and started by making arrangements of them across the page, playing with how they might appear to interact and chase each other.

At this stage, any sketches I make are very rough, just noting down ideas and shapes. A little paint might mark the path a group of jackdaws might take, and I begin to play with scale.

I watch my films of the jackdaws again, pausing in places and sketching where the birds are. I’m not sure quite which composition to use yet, but I think I need to cram in as many birds as I can!