This demo is a basic demo on painting lights or whites. It is to illustrate the process, therefore, simple color values are used and there is no translucence painted in. Also, since I didn't have anything carved for the demo, I used a flat piece of tupelo and drew on a few feathers. This also gave me the idea that this could also be a great opportunity to illustrate how to achieve dimension using paint alone.

Translucence will be a subject for a future demo.

As I said earlier, the study board that I'm demonstrating on is flat...it has no contours whatsoever carved in. The only alteration was stoning and burning individual feathers.

I don't apply gesso to my carving, but paint directly on my sealed wood.

The concepts presented here for white/ light-grey can easily be adjusted to paint white/white by using a lighter version of the color values I'll be giving you.

Another thing to note is that I chose to use a cool color palette here, so I'm using purple, raw umber, ultramarine blue and cad yellow light. You could easily paint this with a warm color palette by using burnt umber, yellow oxide, purple, cad yellow medium.

Or you could use entirely different colors as your base mixes...the main thing to remember is that you want several colors and several values...pure white is going to look dead, no matter how much you have contoured your feathers.

Many people start their base coat with "pure" white. This doesn't work for this reason: You need several values of color for realism and softness. Starting with pure white leaves you nowhere to go to build your lighter values, because you have already used your lightest value as a base.

You still need to create and enhance the contours you have established with paint. Slapping on some white paint and relying on your carved features to do this for you will result in a surface that looks like it is full of canals between your carved feathers/groups. Carving is only PART of the illusion.

PHOTO #1

This is the board with the feathers stoned and burned. The light and dark areas are remnants of my penciled guidelines for my barbs.

PHOTO #2

The base coat is a medium light value made from Titanium White (PW6) + a touch of Raw Umber (PBr7) + a touch of Diox Purple (PV23).

The main thing you want to do here is to "kill" the white. Straight white is too stark at this point. Besides that, with straight white, you won't have any room to build value changes. You want several values and save your "pure" white for accents at the end.

I use a Royal brand series 9625 #8 round for the base coats.

There are 3 base coats applied here. Thin the paint with water and flow medium to the consistency of skim milk.

The flow medium breaks the surface tension of the water and makes the pigments disperse more evenly over the surface. If you've ever had your color "pool" in spots while you were applying washes, this is why.

PHOTO #3

Add a little more raw umber to darken the base mix for a shading color. Apply this randomly...darken some (but not all) feather bases, and create a few ripple valleys.

Here's my key to softness & interest:
Do not darken (or lighten, as the case may be) every feather base & do not lighten (or darken) every feather edge.
This often results in a scaly, too even appearance.
Randomness is the key here.
The shades were applied with an airbrush. You could use a wet-blending technique to achieve the same effect.

PHOTO #4
Make a highlight color from titanium white and cadmium yellow light (PY35) and apply this randomly to a few edges and centers.

Again, the key to softness & interest:
Not darkening (or lightening, as the case may be) every feather base & not lightening (or darkening) /every feather edge.
In real life, light hits the feathers in different areas & in different ways.
Also, some feathers are naturally different values than their neighbors.

What this (an the previous) step is doing is recreating this light play in the initial basing in of color. Establish this randomness & variety early in the painting process. This looks really weird now, but it will all be pulled together in the next steps.

Right now, there is no delineation of individual feathers...aside from that done in the texturing phase...and you don't want color delineation of the feathers right now. This delineation will be done in the last step.

You can see, though, how this randomness is already creating the illusion of softness. Look &, you will see that the lights and darks don't follow any particular feather edge or base.Also, each feather does not have light & dark patches in the same places, nor in the same quantity as the others.

It is difficult at first to resist creating order and pattern, but it's a vital part of this technique to avoid order.

The highlights were applied with an airbrush. You could use a wet-blending technique to achieve the same effect. This is the only stage I'll use an airbrush.

PHOTO #5


With the base-coat value and the shade value, paint random detail lines throughout the entire area to bring the values closer together.

"Detailing" is pulling accent lines through the feather, following the flow of the barb lines.
Work quickly & use a light touch. You want the detail lines thin.
If you try to make each stroke deliberate, you run the risk of applying too much pressure, which will make a thicker stroke.

Try to use just the tip of the brush, and just "kiss" the surface with it.
Also, don't paint every barb, and vary the lengths of the strokes. In other words...
Some strokes won't go all the way to the base or edge, & some should extend slightly past the edges.

It helps to pick up a little flow medium on your brush prior to loading it with paint.
The paint consistency should be a little thinner than cream.
Remember...random.

The detail lines are not obvious,but still visible...beginning to subtly tie the values together. You can see that the patchiness is still evident, but not as strong.

I'm using a Leow-Cornell Series 7020 Ultra-Round, #4.