Animals by Barry
Evolution of My Artwork:
Step by Step
Burmese Green Peacock
Acrylic on linen canvas with Metallics 30”x40”
I am beginning a new painting of a Burmese Green Peacock.
Pavo muticus spicier.
30”x40” acrylic with metallics on linen canvas.
This is a very rare and extremely colorful species of Peacock, characterized by scalloped green body feathers, brightly colored face and tall colorful head crest.
I encourage you to read my article on Color theory.
I will be referring to the principles in this article as I utilize this painting to describe more subtle and varied uses of color.
I begin with the background colors. Different portions of the train (to be painted) are held at different angles to the light source. They will therefore appear different in color. The background colors will be almost entirely covered, but the small flecks that will show through will appear to make the portion of the train over them appear subtly different because of their proximity of these small visible flecks of different background colors.
I am applying a vignette of a lighter yellower brown and a darker redder brown to portions of the background. The yellow brown will brighten the greens and yellows in the train. The darker redder brown will make the greens appear less intense, while also bringing them forward so they will appear closer.
The blue/grey textured area on the bottom approximated the actual ground color and will be partially visible when the painting is finished.
I lay cream colored tail feathers over the background of my Burmese Green Peacock painting. So far these colors are pigmented gesso so they have a flat surface.
The tail will be mostly covered by the train feathers, but the small flecks that show through will add a subtle central glow to the train.
You will notice that what I have done so far is prior to putting my layout on the canvas.
I have applied the layout to my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
This painting will be very complex and colorful so I have put a lot of detail into the layout in order to get the feather anatomy correct
I utilize India ink for the layout. It is easy to see, permanent, compatible with acrylics and can be re-worked until it dries.
I have carefully pre-planned this painting, so the colors I have already laid down precisely align with the layout.
The Body feathers are dark edged and scalloped with dark centers so I have marked many of them on the layout. Those that are not marked will be added as I paint them.
The same is true of the saddle, but the saddle, has an even more detailed pattern to the feathers.
The long feather spines are only partially marked on the layout for accurate placement but by only partially indicating them I have more flexibility to adjust their exact positions as I paint them.
The image will continue an additional 1.5” on every side.(3” of width and 3” of height). This is called Gallery Wrap.
I have painted the spines of the first layer of long feathers (these are the longest of the long feathers) on the train of my Burmese Green Peacock.
I have used an off white color for these spines. Later layers will have progressively whiter spines. This will add depth to the train.
I am beginning to paint the plumules of the first layer of long feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock painting
This layer will have dark green conventional acrylic plumules. There will be many thousands of these so it will take multiple days to paint this first layer.
I have worked most of the day and nite to finish the plumules of the first layer of long feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock.
As this painting progress the colors will become more intense and brighter. This will be a very vividly colored bird, but the most intense colors will go on near the completion of the painting.
I have painted the spines for the 2nd layer of long feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
This layer of spines is whiter than the first layer but the next layers will have pure white spines.
Today's work on my Burmese Green Peacock.
Since I had the color out I wanted on the face I have applied it. I have also applied additional black lines to the body to indicate where more of the body feathers will go. This is stuff I will be painting later.
I am painting the plumules of the second layer of long feathers. I will be painting different areas of this group different metallic greens. I have placed 2 small pieces of blue masking tape on portions of the feathers I will not be painting yet. These indicate the transitions between the darker metallic green plumules I have applied between the tapes, and the lighter metallic green plumules I will be applying outside this area
The previous layer has non-metallic plumules and in the photograph it is a bit difficult to distinguish from the new metallic green color.
I continue painting plumules of the second layer of long feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock.
Different portions of the train are at different angles to the light source. They therefore appear different in color. The various feathers in this layer will have different color metallic green plumules. The transition areas are marked with blue tape. The upper right is the darkest green and to both sides of that area is a brighter slightly bluish green.
The remaining area will have brighter yellower plumules.
I have completed the plumules of the second layer of long feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
In this layer I have used multiple different custom metallic green colors.
The lighting angle varies across the train, therefore the apparent color also varies greatly.
The accuracy of these colors in these cell phone pictures is lacking, plus the lighting in my studio is uneven. When I do the final scan (at the end ) the colors will be more accurate, however to actual appreciate the metallics it is best to see the painting in person.
I have added thinner pure white spines for the eye feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock.
As the feathers get shorter the spines needed to support them get thinner.
The white color helps them stand out from those thicker off-white spines of the previous long feathers.
You may notice that there are more of these eye feather spines than there are eye feathers. This is because some of the eyes are located in the gallery wrap or outside the image.
Careful pre-planning was necessary to know where every feather goes, what order to paint everything and what colors will be used before even beginning this painting. Having done several previous peacock paintings, much of my earlier pre-planning also applies to my new peacock paintings.
I have begun to paint plumules of the eye feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock.
So far I have only painted the right side and have used more than one color. The quality of my cell phone camera and lighting limits the accuracy or visibility of these colors. The left side will be painted with multiple additional different metallic green colors.
After that I will paint the eyes and add additional colors to these same plumules. These steps will add a lot more vivid colors to the train. The body, saddle, head and crest will also be intensely colorful.
I have painted the plumules of the top section of the eye feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock.
I have also added some of this new metallic green color to the lower right edge.
The left side of the train still needs to be done to complete this step.
Early in the painting each step was obvious and easy to see. At this stage even large amounts of work are less noticeable.
I have completed the plumules of the eye feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
I have again added multiple different greens both to the left side that I worked on today, and to the right side.
We are looking at the train from multiple angles therefore the colors will all appear different on different portions of the train. This adds an additional level of complexity than my other peacock paintings as well as many more metallic colors than any of my previous peacock paintings. The body, saddle, head and crest will also have more complex colors. This will be the most colorful peacock I have painted.
Prussian Blue is a very dark (almost black) blue that is opaque when used heavy and bluer when mixed with other colors or diluted. I really enjoy using this color. I am very sparing in my use of black and I often use this color instead.
I am painting the first of the under-colors of the eyes of my Burmese Green Peacock painting. These will be conventional acrylic colors and be overpainted with more detailed metallic colors.
I will be painting the rest of the bird later, but when I use a base color that I will be using layer I will apply it to paint more efficiently. I have also retouched a few small areas that l felt needed to be retouched.
I have applied 3 new blue under colors to the eyes of my Burmese Green Peacock painting, plus a little to the head and body.
I have applied 3 new brown under colors to the eyes of my Burmese Green Peacock.
I have added a new green and blue under color to the last concentric ring of the eyes of the Burmese Green Peacock painting. (I will also be adding additional colors to the same ring next)
I have also applied these same colors where they will be used on the rest of the bird. Lastly I have applied an orange under color to spots on the head and body, because these need to go down before the colors I will be working on next.
A bright green and a yellow are the last 2 under colors (10 altogether) of the eyes of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
The overall color of this bird is green. The cyan/like blues and the yellows I am using will make the greens look more intense than the colors I am actually painting. (See my article on color theory)
I have also used these same under colors in the rest of the bird.
These areas will be overpainted with fine lines of metallic colors so the finished colors will look different.
I have added one last green under color to the body and saddle of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
A few small spots were also added to some of the eyes.
This concludes the under colors and I will next be applying finely detailed metallic colors.
The eyes of the Burmese Green Peacock have concentric rings of color.
I have begun with the coppery ring and applied 3 custom metallic colors in the copper/bronze range. Also a few small specs of of these colors in the saddle area.
I have added 3 new custom blue metallic acrylic colors to the center 3 rings of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
I am painting the last ring of the eyes of my Burmese Green Peacock.
This will be a very complex and time consuming step.
In the first photo I have painted the darkest bluest area of the train with a blue-green metallic color. I paint the outer ring and then extend the brush strokes beyond the ring to make the fringe around the eyes.
In the second photo I have painted the eyes below the left group with a lighter blue-green metallic color.
In the third photo I have painted the eyes above and below with a greener-blue metallic color. In addition I have highlighted the ring in the bluer section with a yellow-green color.
Each transition color is only a little different from the adjacent eye feathers in order to make the transition gradual and more natural looking.
This is almost the completion of the train of my Burmese Green Peacock painting. Tomorrow I will add some more highlights and shadows and then move on to the rest of the bird.
Using an extremely fine brush I have used a transparent yellow color and a light metallic blue color to intensify the division of some of the concentric rings in the eyes of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
These are very fine details and may not be visible in the photo. Placing the blue and green details together intensified the overall green colors in the painting.
This step took 2 days and completes the train of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
I have highlighted the eye fathers with a new custom metallic yellow color. I then used a black glaze (very transparent color) on the perimeter of the eyes and shaft ends. Then I finished by using a fine solid black line to the ends of each eye feather shaft and blending the end into the white shaft .
The previous 3 colors and the new work are too fine to be easily visible in the full picture but can be seen in the detail photo.
The train is the majority of the work in my peacock paintings so the rest of the painting should progress more quickly.
I applied the first metallic green color to the saddle of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
I am not yet painting the body but since this color will also be used on the body feathers I applied it there also. Then I retouched the dark edging of the saddle feathers.
I have added a new custom metallic yellow to the saddle feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
This differs from the existing yellow under color in that it is metallic.
I then put the same color into the body feathers since I was using the color, but the body will be painted later.
I then retouched the fine dark lines and added very fine black lines that will be partly visible when I paint the central color patterns of the saddle feathers.
Despite multiple attempts I was not able to formulate the exact color of metallic green I wanted to add next.
Instead I decided to paint pure silver to parts of the saddle of my Burmese Green Peacock painting. I then painted over the silver with glazes (highly transparent colors) of 3 different colors.
(2 greens and a yellow)
Glazes are highly usefull. In addition to being able to modify the underlying metallic colors into exactly the color I wanted it also allows an extremely gradual and precise transition between the differently colored feathers.
This essentially completes the saddle and I will be working on the body next.
The saddle is my favorite feature of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
Each feather has an intricate triangular central pattern. This is the outstanding feature of this group of feathers.
I therefore decided to add more detail to the central pattern utilizing 6 different metallic colors (all of which have already been used earlier in this painting) and I also put the tiniest amount of shadow to the very edge of the train.
If you are really good at finding the finest of detail, I painted blue centers to 7 of the saddle feathers. Can you find all 7?
I am painting the custom metallic colors of the body feathers of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
In the first photo I have painted a metallic green that will be the most dominant body color. Then I retouched he dark feather edges.
In the second photo I have added 3 additional metallic blue colors (from very light to very dark, as well as the tiniest amount of silver in only a few tiny feathers.
As with the other steps I have added some of these colors to the head and crest (that I will be painting later.
For the final body colors I will be using glazes (highly transparent colors) to make more refined color variations.
I have painted the body of my Burmese Green Peacock painting with 3 more glazes (highly transparent colors, followed by 2 very silvery light metallic highlights.
The head and crest ( and some details that appear only in the gallery wrap) are all that remain to be painted (plus varnishes and signature). The full picture now gives a good hint of what the final composition will look like.
I am beginning to paint the head of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
The beak and eyes will have many layers of clear acrylic varnish in order to build up a 3 dimensional effect (I have explained this technique in my step by step Indigo Peacock description.
Each of these layers will require laying the painting flat and a lot of drying time.
Colors will also be sandwiched between these clear layers.
I am therefore only applying a little of the head paint at a time since I will have multiple opportunities to add to it.
This is more efficient than painting the head completely and then still having to wait for my varnishes to dry.
The face will have tiny amounts of many many colors, in this step I have already applied about 10 colors with many more to come. Except for the feathers these colors will not be metallic.
A few more layers of detail to the face of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
I am concentrating on the beak and eye as I will be painting multiple more clear layers to these areas.
I build up a little more detail on the head of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
I have begun the small metallic head feathers on the head and crest. More detail and colors will come later.
Between each work session (for the head) I lay the painting flat and apply another thick layer of clear acrylic varnish to build up a 3 dimensional varnish effect.
I am using many many colors but only a small amount of additional detail in each step. I will have multiple opportunities to complete the detailing as I build up my varnish effect and sandwich small details between layers.
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This photo shows the varnish effect I am using for my Burmese Green Peacock.
I have laid the painting flat and level. I then applied a thick layer of gloss acrylic varnish. The surface tension causes the varnish (which goes on cloudy in appearance) to bead up into the shape I want. As it starts to dry I watch it carefully to fix any edges that bleed past the desired edges. If not fixed right away it will dry and ruin the painting.
When dry the varnish will be clear (providing I have not put too much on at once and I provide plenty of drying time)
The varnish will shrink as it dries, so the center will sink in rather than maintain the nice curved shape you see now.
Achieving the gracefully curved finished shape you see here with the wet varnish will require many layers. For complex shapes it is necessary to apply adjacent areas separately so the wet varnish does not bleed into the wrong areas. Nearby beads of varnish will actually jump across their borders to bleed into another area that is too close.
WARNING: THIS VARNISH EFECT IS COMPLICATED AND WILL RUIN YOUR PAINTING IF NOT DONE PERFECTLY.
DO NOT TRY THIS ON ANYTHING YOU DO NOT WANT TO RUIN UNLESS YOU HAVE PRACTICED IT A LOT FIRST!
Using metallic silver, followed by glazes, I have painted the feathers of the head and crest of my Burmese Green Peacock painting.
After these colors dry I will again lay the painting flat to add additional layers of varnish to the beak, eye and also the crest.
A few last minor details to my Burmese Green Peacock.
My signature
The image wraps an additional 1 1/2” around all 4 sides. This is called gallery wrap.
And the painting is essentially complete except for my varnish effects.
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This is the final varnish effect of my Burmeses Green Peacock (the very last step of the painting)
After multiple layers of acrylic spot gloss varnish I then sprayed on 4 very thin overall layers of acrylic non yellowing UV protected varnish. Then I applied layers of acrylic high gloss varnish to the beak, eye and crest.
The crest has 4 layers of high gloss varnish with colors sandwiched in, and a tiny bit of matte varnish in the center.
The eye has about 12 layers of high gloss varnish with colors sandwiched between, in order to attain a nice domed shape.
The beak is more complex and required over 20 layers of gloss varnish with colors sandwiched in.
The multiple shapes of the beak require building up separately so the adjacent areas will not bleed together.
This has been my most complex peacock painting yet.
The train is held at different angles to the lighting. The metallic colors appear very different as the lighting direction changes, and I have captured these differences using many more colors than I have used before as well as more subtle color variations throughout the painting.
You can also see how the use of color in this painting ties in with my article on color theory.
I hope you enjoyed the step by step evolution of this painting 😊