Painting Sketches

Here are some initial sketches for the project.

I am thinking of 2 separate pieces, rather than one piece made of two canvasses. This way if you ever move, you don't have to keep them together if you don't have enough wall space. I am thinking one piece will have a large peacock feather coming around from the left. The second piece will have two feathers coming from the bottom right/center. One feather will have an eye, the other will one of those long tail feathers. One piece will have have brush strokes going horizontally, the other vertically.

I've put them up side by side…what do you think? In my mind, the feathers will be more colourful and brilliant than how they look here. The camera doesn't pick up all the shades of colours Plus I really want to add some coppers and gold to them too...possibly experiment with some leafing. I think it would look neat.

I experimented a little bit with oils and came out with this third sketch. On top of a gold (acrylic) background I did a blend of browns from the outside inwards (getting lighter towards the center) with a palette knife. I really like the texture that came out of it. It seems to add a bit of character. Oils also have a natural lustre to them (you can see the reflection of the light in the upper corner). They also can be glossed later if you want them more glossy. I don't think oils would cost much more than acrylics and it really is very easy and fast to do with a palette knife. For this idea, I would do both canvasses with this type of background (one with vertical knife strokes and the other with horizontal-the one pictured has vertical strokes) and bits of gold leafing embedded in the background. Then have the colourful feathers painted over top-- same positions as I mentioned for the first two sketches.