Northern Gannets, Part Two

In the previous article (Spring 2012 issue), I demonstrated how I carved one of the northern gannets in a trio of miniatures. It was textured, sealed, coated with gesso, and ready to paint. In this article, I will describe the painting of the gannet and the construction and painting of the rock habitat.

I knew that the rock cliff habitat for this carving would be critical. It had to be realistic and pleasing to the eye, and it had to be representative of a larger cliff that would have hundreds of gannets in close proximity, some of them interacting and others doing their own thing. I wanted people to view it from three sides.

After a lot of sketching, I had a pretty good idea of the rough shape I wanted. I decided to have the gannets in a roughly triangular placement with each at a different level. My goal was to draw the observer’s eye in a clockwise direction from the preening gannet at the lowest level to the one above and slightly to the left, then to the top one, and finally back to the preening gannet.

This article is from the Summer 2012 issue. For more information on our issues, check out our issues page.