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Details are complete, the painting is finished.  “Wing Dancing” 48″ x 60″ acrylic on canvas in pointillism showing Sandhill Cranes in the courtship dance.  It was fun and satisfying to paint something large, and took approximately nine weeks to complete. More bird paintings can be found on my website; wildlife.

Gail Niebrugge, wildlife artist

Another day of painting and I’m still concentrating on the background around the cranes, whenever I think I’m ready to paint details on the birds I am distracted by the negative space around them.  Above is a close up showing the many dots and colors in the foreground grasses.

I think the upper third of the canvas negative space looks stronger now.  It is hard to see in this photo, but I’ve added many, many dots of hues, tints, and shades to the gradation of values and incorporated blue violet, purple and red violet to the original blues that previously dominated.  The next step is to paint detail.

Gail Niebrugge, Wildlife paintings

At this point unless you can study each stage carefully and compare, the changes I’m making are subtle and may not be obvious.  I’ve added a lot of lighter colored grasses to the foreground, and began to darken the top third of the background in the left and right corners.  I’ve also blended the grasses in the distance into a softer fade.  I have done nothing to the birds for quite awhile.  These changes took about 8 hours of painting.  I don’t think I’ll work on the cranes until the very end, my next session will focus on finishing the top third of the background which still appears weak to me.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska wildlife painter

I’m working on refining all aspects of the painting, a little here, a little there, more variation of values in the grass and darkening the colors in the background behind the birds.  Next, I began work on the Sandhill crane wings, defining shapes and adding a some blur to the feathers at the wing tips.  The birds are still at a very roughed-in state.  The progress I’m making is subtle now and will take a careful comparison to see the difference between Stage #10 and Stage #11 of the painting, these changes took several days of work.  Some times after I make a change and don’t like it, I’ll paint it back the way it was before.  A lot of effort goes into a painting that is not visible, but all that matters is how it looks when it is finished.  When I paint again I will focus on more detail.

Gail Niebrugge, wildlife artist

A close up detail of pointillism painted on the foreground grasses.  You can see many, many layers of color at this stage.  I’m concentrating on making the foreground beautiful close-up as well as from the distance.  A large variety of values and hues have been added as dots to form the grass.

The above photo shows how the grass appears from a distance,I’m beginning to achieve the look I’ve been seeking.  I need to step back and evaluate the background especially the upper third of the painting.  It looks a little weak to me.  This 48″ x 60″ canvas is quite a challenge, and is taking a huge number of dots, as well as a lot of time.  Fun, though.

Gail Niebrugge, pointillism painting

Adding many more dots to the grasses I’m continuing to darken the middle ground (the background in the center third of the canvas) and darken contrasting areas in the foreground weeds.  I’m doing exactly what I didn’t want to do, and re-painting all the grasses.  I didn’t like the first version.  I’ve also added a fuzzy blur to the tips of the crane wings in an attempt to show motion.  Much more to do with this concept, but that is for later.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, wildlife painter

To give some contrast to the light color of the birds necks I darkened the yellow grasses in the distance and added a great many pale blue, bluegreen, and blue violet dots to the middle of the canvas.  For the moment, this seems to work better.   I also brought back some of the darker accents in the grasses that were covered initially with the first several layers of dots.  Now I need to concentrate on the Sandhill crane images, make them show movement and rhythm.

Gail Niebrugge, Art of Alaska

I’ve added some detail and rhythm to the lower grasses and lighter toned dots to the Sandhill cranes.  I’m not satisfied with the pale background behind the light tan cranes in the middle one third of the canvas.  I’m going to find a value and color of acrylic paint that will convey my idea and yet give some contrast to the light tints on the cranes necks.  More dots, ta dot, ta dot, dot, dot.

Gail Niebrugge, Wild Bird Paintings

To help establish the values of the bird shapes in relation to the background I began  to paint the middle tones with dots.  My goal was to have a very bland tan and gold background with camouflaged tan Sandhill Cranes, and I will continue working toward this objective.  But, if it doesn’t please me I will have a ton of dots to paint to make a change.  I wish I could fast forward and take a sneak peak.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska nature artist

I am attempting to lighten the upper two-thirds of the background with dots leaving very little underpainting showing through.  The sheer size of this canvas, 48″ x 60″, is making my progress very slow.  So far nothing but the dark areas of the Sandhill cranes have been painted, the rest of the birds are white canvas.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska pointillist

More dots are added to the grasses on the lower portion of the dancing Sandhill crane canvas.  This painting will receive many layers of dots until I am able to determine if the values and color will work the way I have planned.  I can’t evaluate anything yet.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska painter

I slowly and carefully begin to apply the fist layer of small acrylic dots on top of the wild, abstract underpainting of Sandhill Cranes I’ve titled “Wing Dancing”.  My thought at this point is to create a rather neutral, bland, tan and gold background surrounding the camouflaged tan birds with only hints of the colorful underpainting showing through.  If I don’t like the look I will have to repaint the original dots with different choices of color, a big job.  But, I won’t know how it will look until I’ve tried and that is why pointillism takes so long.  Regular artists just slap on some color, and if they don’t like it, slather on another quickly with large brushes.  Pointillism is tedious, each dot of color applied with a small brush, layer upon layer until the results are acceptable.

Close up detail of the first layer of dots.   For some unknown reason I enjoy doing this, go figure.

Gail Niebrugge, painter of dots

The underpainting is nearly finished.  I will add some darks and lights to the shapes of the dancing cranes then the slow, painstaking process of pointillism will begin.  I will update the progress of this work as time permits, in the meanwhile my life will continue with shows, outdoor activity, vacationing guests, gardening, proposals, meetings, and all the other business of art and the artist.  I would love to have this one finished to exhibit in my booth at the end of August during Alaska State Fair, but I seriously doubt that will happen.  In a perfect world it is possible, but any gliches, problems, or challenges that surface along the way will extend the completion date.

Gail Niebrugge, wildlife art

After enlarging the thumbnail sketch of Sandhill Cranes onto a 48″ x 60″ canvas I begin to quickly slap colorful acrylic paint on to the heavy fabric with big, wide brushes.  This wild, abstract application of brilliant hues and tints will serve as an underpainting and base for the thousands of small acrylic dots to follow.  A canvas this large will take many months to paint in pointillism.

Gail Niebrugge, pointillism artist

After creating many, many designs I selected the composition of dancing Sandhill Cranes on the lower right.  It has good motion, dynamics, overlapping images, and shows a more common relationship where some cranes dance and others watch.  I reduced this sketch 50%, darkened the room and projected the image onto a 48″ x 60″ stretched canvas using my ancient opaque projector.  Right in the middle of sketching the beamed image the projector light bulbs burned out and I was shocked not only to find replacement bulbs on my shelf, but dated 1989!  The first bulbs lasted 20 years, amazing, a testimony to how little I use this system for sketching my work onto the canvas.  Many times I just free from draw the subjects, but this time I wanted more control on such a big surface.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska wildlife art

To create a composition that will adapt to the 48″ x 60″ canvas I used a Proportional Scale to calculate a reduction that would fit my tracing paper.  My Sandhill Crane tracings were various sizes, some too large and others too small to realistically portray the birds at the same distance, so I used the enlargement or reduction calculator on my copier to size the drawings.  The copier would jam if I tried to use tracing paper, but I found if I manually fed two pages as one it worked!   As I designed, certain images became favorites and I worked to find a way to utilize each of them in the final layout.

The drawing in the above photo is one that I later discarded.  The composition stage is one that many beginning artists fail to comprehend, and often just copy a photo.  I ask, if you just copy a photo, why paint?

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, wildlife artist

I decided to embark on a monumental project, one that will take most of the summer or longer, and I will share my progress with you on this Blog as it evolves.  My giant venture is to create a 48″ x 60″ pointillism painting of Sandhill Cranes.  During the spring bird migration I spent a great deal of time watching, sketching and photographing these lanky creatures and what interested me most about their habits is the crazy dancing, wing flapping hop-scotch activity that takes place while they are on the ground.  I took more than 800 photos and initially planned to paint the cranes as they majestically flew through the air against a back drop of  snow capped mountains.  Instead, on further examination, I decided to paint the wacky “Wing Dancing” ritual and focus entirely on the birds, eliminating all background detail.

After sorting through hundreds of photos and sketches I picked several to download and print out where I carefully studied the images focusing my search on finding interesting shapes and motion.  Next, to save time, I traced my favorite birds with pencil on tracing paper and began arranging the drawings to form a pleasing composition.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska wildlife paintings