PAIR OF MOURNING DOVES

 

4 x 5 inches, watercolor, 2022

framed original painting $155

 

The pencil sketch for this very tiny painting was for composing the painting below, called Bird Sanctuary  (Look at the tiny black window high up on the silo).

BIRD SANCTUARY

 

10 x 17 inches, watercolor, 2022

framed original painting $528

giclée print $100

The silo in this painting is based on a real, existing silo in Goldsboro, North Carolina (I made up the barn).  Goldsboro used to be a "bird sanctuary", as posted on the city limits signs of that era.  My father told me that the signs were probably a warning for little boys like me, who had received BB guns from Santa Claus;  I believe he may have been right.

The painting was first completed as a lone silo in the middle of a field, which was later re-imagined as you see it here.  The barn and most of the birds were added later.  The laurel blossoms are gouache (opaque paint), but the white parts of the birds and the window were scratched in with a knife to expose the white paper.  You could say they are carved as much as painted.