Today was my 7^th painting lesson. We were presented with a series of very complex bird images to choose from for today’s painting. I chose this Galahs because we have a population of Galahs that stop in our yard most afternoons to rest before moving on to wherever they spend their evenings and nights. If there was a collective noun for them, I would say it would be a cacophony of Galahs as they are incredibly noisy and travel in large groups.

My teacher said that I have very good drawing skills. This is the most complex thing I’ve ever drawn. I had to put my finger on the feather in the reference image and then draw that one, then move my finger to the next one and draw that one, and so on because I kept losing my place in the feathers. She kept coming to check my progress as I painted, tapping the table next to my painting and saying, “Very good. Very good.” It certainly boosted my confidence. At the end of the class, she told me to bring professional paper next week rather than practice paper so I could hang up my paintings. I’m going to have to get some really good paper for next week. She said that it will be much easier to paint on high quality paper too.

The drawing takes a lot of time. It reminded me of sewing a garment in that there is fabric preparation of at least 3 steps, addressing and cutting the pattern and fabric, marking the fabric, etc., then finally the sewing. The sewing doesn’t take nearly as much time as the prep work. The paintings are like that too. The drawing is all the prep work, then the painting moves relatively quickly compared to the drawing. I shocked myself by painting this image. I didn’t know I could do it. I’m really pleased with how it came out. If I’d had more time, I would have also included the leaves and sky in the background. As it was, I felt lucky to get this far in 3 hours. At least there’s a tree for the Galah to sit on.

Here’s the painting of the Galah.