Rain Bird

Rain Bird
acrylic on paper

I spent over an hour Photoshopping this spread and the color still isn’t quite right. Tealy-aquas are a pain in the ass to reproduce, especially when there are metallics involved. Grrr. This is the first spread in the Blue Journal, which is for an Art Erratica round robin. I was supposed to get this stupid thing mailed out yesterday, but held it back so I could make scans. I figured I’d have plenty of time to get them done this ayem, then I’d run into town and pop this puppy in the mail. Now, it’s looking like that’s not going to happen until tomorrow, which will make it two days late. I suppose I could send it out as is, without getting scans first, but it’s going to be traveling for almost a year. If it gets lost or damaged, I won’t get a second chance. Who knew that it’d take me as long to scan and tweak as it did to make the bloody thing in the first place?

Anyway, this particular RR is color based. Everyone picked a color scheme that appealed to them. Mine is “underwatery blues,” so everyone who works in my book will work primarily in shades of blue.

Obviously, the Rain Bird is not anatomically correct. He’s sort of half bird, half betta fish, with feathery blue fins. I used quite a bit of metallic paint, hoping it would give a “silver lining” sort of effect. Metallics don’t scan well, but the original is nice and shimmery. Oooh, shiny!