This painting of a Stonechat was one of the first serious bird
paintings I did over 10 years ago. Quite why I never continued exploring the
genre then I can’t fully understand now. Watercolour landscape was the chief preoccupation
of most of my friends. The watercolour turned up again when I was sorting through some old work.
My wife and I suddenly spotted a pair of Stonechats
on a drystone wall when walking over the low hills on the south
side of the Mawddach estuary in Wales. We and watched them for 15 minutes or so as they flitted along
the wall occasionally darting from one side to the other.
In my hillwalking days my sketching kit consisted of a pad
of A3 cartridge paper and some sticks of charcoal. Sufficient to capture jizz –
that is pose and movement – but I was able to supplement the sketches with detail from colour
slides later. I did watercolours of a male and
a female intending to show them together at one of our LAS exhibitions.
Surprisingly the female sold leaving this colourful lively chap without a mate.
Yes it's on Fabriano5 which I mentioned on Wednesday's post.
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