East Meets West, Part Two: The Eastern Blue Jay
Yes, there is blue in the blue jay--and a lot more besides.
Applying the vibrant blues and subtle violets that exist in this bird will bring your carving to life. If you experience a sense of excitement and satisfaction once you finish, you know you hit the mark.
Acrylic paints are durable and work quickly, and I use them for all my sculpture painting. For this project I used Jo Sonja’s Artist’s Colors, which I like for their more realistic matte finishes. Some paints will leave a slight sheen to the finish. I want to control the sheen on my painting, so I add a varnish in specific areas that need it. For the Eastern blue jay I used titanium white, warm white, smoked pearl, carbon black, burnt umber, raw umber, ultramarine blue, pthalo blue, yellow light, and dioxazine purple. I also used other Jo Sonja’s mediums, which included matte varnish.
Read the rest of this article in Wildfowl Carving Magazine's Spring 2013 issue.