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| Early Stage To arrive at this point, my drawing has been transferred to the support, then covered entirely with frisket film. Starting with the sky, I first trim out and removed the frisket mask in sections to expose the area for painting. The eagle, mountain range, and foreground are left covered. I then painted the sky with my airbrush freehand, pulling the colors of the clouds across the masked wings of the eagle to keep them consistent across the scene. Next, I trimmed and removed the frisk from the mountains, being certain to trim around the unmelted snowpack areas, leaving them covered so the white of the illustration board could be used to assist in rendering these areas later. The next step I have begun here is the "underpainting" of the mountain range using colored and graphite pencils. For the sunlit peaks burnt orange, copper beech, and golden brown water-soluable colored pencil have been lightly applied; for the shadow areas various hardnesses of stumped graphite pencils are used. |
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| Intermediate Stage I now have started painting the mountains in earnest. Frosted acetate was first applied to the sky to protect it. I then transferred the shape of the sunlit areas to 5" x 8" index cards using tracing paper. These were cut out to create "negative" masks that, when airbrushed through, would protect adjacent shadow areas. Transparent orange was lightly airbrushed over the water-soluable colored pencil, the binder of the paint melting into the pencil, allowing the texture and color of the "underpainting" to show through. When dry, these sunlit areas were masked with the "positive" cut-outs from the index cards, applied loosely with loops of drafting tape sticky side out. Adding a few drops of transparent smoke and sienna brown to the mixture in my color cup, I begin the process of rendering the shadows starting with the darkest, craggiest portions of the mountain face and working from dark to light, making my color mix lighter and cooler as I progress down to the lake shore. Finally, I remove the frisket covering the trees in the middle ground. |
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| Advanced Stage At this point, I've darkened the values in the shadow areas of the mountain as needed, and using various shades of green colored pencil Ive added the distant stand of trees that populate the foot of the butte and far edge of the lake shore on the right of the scene. These have been pushed into the distance by a mixture of transparent ultramarine blue and transparent smoke applied with the airbrush. The unmelted snow pack areas have been unmasked and painted with cool mixtures of white gouache in shadow, brighter and slightly warmer in sunlight. The trees and shore in the middle ground, extending from the center of the painting to the left of the scene, have been rendered with colored pencil. The next step will be a toning down of the yellows in in the green of the recently added treeline and shore by adding "atmospheric perspective" in the form of an airbrushed application of thinned transparent ultramarine blue and transparent smoke. After that, I'll paint the lake's surface, finishing the background so I can finally get to what this painting is really all about - THE EAGLE!!! |
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| Landscape Completion I've now finished the landscape backdrop and have removed the frisket film to reveal the subject of our painting. Leading up to this point, I've painted in the lake's surface with its reflections of our eagle's mountain realm. I've also refined the color of the areas in the shadow of the mountain range, deepening them and making them a little cooler to show the reflected light from the sky. This also heightens the contrast of the warm, sunlit peaks and makes them really stand out. Additionally, I've refined the sky, strengthening the composition and color of the clouds, giving them a bit more presence. I can now get to work on doing the eagle!! |
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| Underpainting the Eagle After applying clear acrylic sealer to the background to protect it, I prepped the eagle with a light application of transparent ochre to the white of the illustration board to give it a warm tint. Refering to a dozen or so different bald eagle photos, over a period of countless hours I have drawn a highly detailed "underpainting" using various shades of brown water soluable colored pencils, attempting to capture the look and feel of our eagle's plummage as accurately as possible. From here I will trace portions of the eagle's outline on to sections of drafting tape to mask him out around his edges, then apply frosted acetate over the background to protect it. I'll then paint the eagle's brown plummage using mixtures of transparent ochre, sienna brown,and opaque burnt umber! When this is complete, I'll trace and cut out the portions of the acetate that cover the beak and talons, then underpaint them with the airbrush using a mixture of opaque azo yellow & hansa yellow. |
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| Completing the Eagle After completing the steps outlined above, I removed all of the masks and moved to rendering the eagle's head, tail plummage, and talons using a combination of brush applied gouache and water-soluable colored pencils. During this process I put the warm tint of these previously toned areas to good use to emphasize the warmth of the sunlight that is beaming down on our subject through a cut in the mountain over on the right, out of the scene. When satisfied with these areas, I applied a piece of frisket film - already cut to fit from a previous step - to the eagle's talons to protect them, and traced the outline of the limb onto a piece of manila folder to create a mask for underpainting wood tones. The branch was then airbrushed with a combination of transparent ochre, transparent sienna brown, and transparent smoke. I then finished up by giving the dead branch a rather bleached, dryed-out appearance using a combination of gouache and colored pencils. And there you have it - the eagle has landed!! |
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