Watercolor Lesson: Pigeons

Here's lesson one of my "pigeons" for watercolorists:

Inspiration:

I was inspired by the way warm light shone into the shed, illuminating a mood of safety inside and allure outside; a metaphor for taking creative risks. I wondered what type of bird built the nest. I thought about a childhood story of the pigeon who gave all of his silver feathers to help the less fortunate and was reborn a golden phoenix.

Techniques:

First I blocked in the basic colors and values of the shed in my large sketch book.

Next I did numerous pigeon sketches until I absorbed their forms and attitudes.

A couple of poses that would symbolize the homebody and the traveller caught my eye; one bird looks back at the nest while the other looks outside.

Using rubber cement, I roughed in a resist of these two on 140lb hot press (smooth) D'Arches watercolor paper and subsequently washed in some light color areas while refering to my original shed sketch.

I plan on a "Wizard of Oz" effect: the light outside and where it strikes pigeons will have color and the interior of the dark shed will be mostly black and white.

(More later as this piece develops)