Follow me on Twitter
portrait
Go to the Janice Mills home page

Little Lorikeets ·

Little Lorikeets
Medium: Pastel
Base: Paper
Year: 2010
Pastel on crimson pastel paper of two native birds to Australia. The Crimson Lorikeet is a nectar loving bird that feeds amongst flowering gums and also enjoys grass seeds and can be tempted to visit by leaving out wild bird seed in the garden. This is my first attempt to draw these birds.
This pastel artwork is the second attempt to do an artwork of one of our native birds. After doing my first painting of an Australian Rosella, I decided to create a set of three pastels featuring some of my favourite Australian birds.
As with the first artwork I spent most of my time on the background, getting all the blends right and deciding what to leave in and what to delete so that the birds would be the main feature and not the foliage around them. I also wanted to get the branch they are sitting on looking as three dimensional as possible.
When I had all of the background done, I was left with a red "blob" in the centre of the work where the birds were to go. That is where I left the work and came back to it fresh in my next session. I divided the birds up into about six sections and slowly worked my way from head to tail. I then spent some time walking back and forth putting in little details of white along the back an darker sections in the shadow areas to help bring the birds right out of the background.
Dimensions: 40 cm (width) × 30 cm (height)
Ownership: Private collector (United Kingdom)

Return to the gallery »