IT’S ALL ABOUT THE COLOURS

I was asked by a Patreon member to create a pastel tutorial focusing on iridescent feathers. I immediately wanted to draw either a Hummingbird or Kingfisher and after looking for reference photos settled on this. I have added a completely different background adding even more colour and a bit of a magical feel. 

This first update shows the background and I decided to go with magentas for this. I liked how it worked with the blues, teals and greens which will be the main colours in the bird.

When this full length tutorial goes live on Patreon I’ll share the methods used to create a very dark black background. I used new art supplies so wasn’t sure of the outcome but since drawing on it I LOVE it! The Anthrecite Pastelmat paper is not black. It’s more of a coal grey and I am not overly keen on the rougher texture this colour paper seems to have. So I needed to come up with an alternative.

This second update where I am beginning on the Hummingbird and beautiful colours required me to dig out pencils I don’t use very often. The beautiful blues in the Derwent range worked really well. I’m already excited to plan the next piece on this dark background.

For the bird, I just used pastel pencils. There was not any part where I needed to use PanPastels or soft pastel sticks. This enabled me to ensure my layers were kept vibrant and well saturated with colour. One of my main aims with this piece was to ensure I did not create muddy layers which can very easily happen. So sticking with the pastel pencils enabled me to be more precise from the beginning and maintain the rich colours in the small specific areas where they were needed. 

The finished portrait will be shared soon once it’s photographed :). I’ll post here when the full tutorial is available on Patreon. There will also be a short tutorial uploaded to YouTube.