Bye Bye Birdy

Remember this little lady?  Well, I never really felt very satisfied with that painting...I was (and still am) pleased with the feathers on her back, but the perspective is terrible, her head is cartoony...I just never felt that it worked.  I should have used more reference!

I recently rediscovered the painting in the back of the wardrobe and thought that's it, the bird has to go!  I bought myself a tub of clear gesso so that I could 'refresh' the canvas and try sanding it back to give smooth canvas a go.  I'm hoping I can get better detail that way as I'm not the biggest fan of canvas texture for detail work.

Anyway, I mixed a goldy-coppery-metallic colour with the clear gesso and went at it with a sponge brush...this is the result!  (Terrible photo but you get the idea)  I have an idea of where I want to go with this...if anyone's interested to see more WIPS let me know and I will continue uploading progress shots, but it will probably be slow progress as I've somehow managed to get four separate pieces on the go along with everything else I've got going on!  Whaaaat?!  But I did invest in a spectrum bulb, so now I can do colour work when the daylight sucks or is non-existent, yay!

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The original
Stages 3 and 4
Stages 5, 6 and 7