Quent Cordair Fine Art

Straight away, I need to address the foreshortening problem with the wing. It’s just too flat. My first move is to add lots of new little feathers to the area that I painted in the last step. I want the feathers to get smaller and closer together as they near the “joint” where the wing would connect to our lofty gentleman’s shoulder.

To accentuate this newly modeled form for our wing, I also go ahead and darken the area just below this so-called joint and also the area between his arm and body. These areas will be in deep shadow, which will give the necessary contrast to make the upper part of the wing look closer to us. And–nothing up my sleeve–PRESTO, we have a foreshortened wing. It’s far from complete, though, so don’t develop too much of an attachment to what you see just yet.

Okay, now I can think about our second problem, which is gradually transitioning from our lovely gold-tipped feathers to their more color-challenged gray counterparts. With the newly added foreshortened adjustment, this isn’t going to be too difficult because I really only need that transition to take place on the backmost part of the wing.

All the feathers in deep shadow are already of the gray variety, and all I need to do is add a few golden stepping stones of color at the point where the wing “folds” down. This area is also in shadow, and the subdued darkened value of the golden color makes it that much easier to pull off the transition. I add a few feathers of the straight gray persuasion below the transition just to see if it looks okay. I think we’re definitely going in the right direction this time, so we’ll take a short recess and reconvene in Step 15 for the heart-pounding conclusion to this visual wing drama.

As I mentioned before, while working on the wing I’m trying to create two transitions as I move from top to bottom: a transition from small to large feathers and a transition from golden-orange to grayish feathers.

As my work continues, I’m still trying to stick pretty diligently to my black and white compositional drawing. I’ve decided that I’ll try making a clean transition to gray feathers at the point where the longer feathers begin. This is based on my observations of actual bird wings and the way their color patterns make similar changes. I know, of course, that I can go back and change things if I like without too much trouble, so it’s not a big deal if my first idea doesn’t please me.

The result is what you see in the accompanying photo. It does not, as it turns out, please me. Not at all. Now I know what you’re thinking.
“Damon,” you’re saying to yourself, “you’re a professional who makes a living creating works of art. Mistakes are naught but pebbles in the playground of mere mortals, where true artists such as yourself surely never tread.” Or perhaps you’re just thinking “yup, see, I knew this guy was a hack”. Either way, here is all the evidence you need to reinforce the fact that not everything always goes according to plan, and that, indeed, I eat my Spaghetti-O’s one at a time just like everyone else. (or, wait.um, never mind)

Even before I reach the color transition point I’m becoming unsatisfied with the look of things. I’m pretty confident after seeing only this much of the wing cut in that a sudden change to gray is not going to be what I want, despite the fact that real birds in nature prefer it that way. Also, I don’t think the transition from small to large feathers is coming along smoothly either. And as a matter of fact, I suspect the cream in my coffee may have been a bit off this morning as well. These are all bad signs.

Another problem I’m noticing is that the wing appears to be too flat. Since the wing is folded up, there should be an obvious foreshortening where it connects to the figure’s shoulder, and the majority of the wing should appear to be further away.

So, ultimately, I decide that a gradual transition in color is the best approach–nature and its winged denizens be damned. And I decide to go back to my early preparatory sketch (the line drawing in pencil) as my main source of reference for the foreshortened shape of the wing and to dispense with the full comp drawing (in black and white) as my formal guide. This will mean backtracking a bit (translation: painting over everything I just did today) to attack this can of beans from a new angle. And remind me to buy some fresh coffee cream for tomorrow as well.

As I continue to work on the feathers, I have two main goals: A) To make a fairly smooth transition from the fuzzy down area to the big, long feathers on the lower wing; B) To make a transition from reddish top feathers to grayish bottom feathers.

The former goal is probably the easiest. It merely entails increasing the size of the feathers until I reach the big daddy feathers below. One thing I have to keep in mind, though, is that real bird wings don’t have a gradual increase in feather size. They tend to go in about three stages, from small to medium to large. With my wing all folded up as it is, this three-tiered wing design is somewhat difficult to present visually. In fact, it’s the main concern on my mind while I work.

The second goal–transitioning from reddish feathers to grayish ones–is something I have to think about, but isn’t quite as pressing. I can, after all, paint the whole spankin’ wing in red and then go back and change the colors as I like after I get the feathers down pat. But it’s always nice to get things right the first time around, so I’d like to complete both goals while I work without having to come back and change too much. There are two ways I can deal with this goal. The first is to make a clean break between red and gray feathers. The second is to use a gradual transition. At the moment, I’m leaning toward the gradual approach. But if I don’t like the effect, it’s something I can change without losing the family farm.

Because of the touchy nature of the work, I’m being as careful (read: working as slow as sludge) as I can without grinding my progress to a complete halt. I’m suddenly keenly aware of how few wings I’ve painted. But there’s nothing like figuring out something new on the spot in front of an international audience, so tally-ho.

Since the rest of the painting is going to remain the same, I’ve decided to provide a zoomed-in progress shot in three stages for my first attack on the big wing.

If you look closely at the leftmost of the three frames, you’ll notice a hazy sort of fuzz around the edge of the wing. This was my first task in starting the wing, and it’s something I also did with the previous wing. (I didn’t mention it before because I was planning on detailing it here. Did anyone notice anyway? No? That’s okay, I’m not grading on a curve) The hazy area is actually a mixture of ultramarine blue and the cream-colored paint that you can see on the edge of the wing. It’s a transition hue that’s halfway between the sky and the wing color, which is why it appears hazy. I want to take the edge off the wings by giving them a bit of airiness, which will help to offset the heaviness they will ultimately take on when the much darker large wing (which is in shadow) is completed.

The next step is to create the edge of the wing. The feathers at this point really aren’t feathers so much as a glammed-up version of a feather boa. Think baby chicks and you’ll have the right idea (sorry if this conjures up grisly images of Daedalus harvesting dozens of cute little chicks to make his wings. Hey, if you’d been raised in the countryside you probably wouldn’t have a problem with that. And just where do you think your cute little bunny slippers came from.) My goal is to create a texture that hints at soft downy feathers, without having to sit and paint every little detail.

Now, the trick is to make a transition from the downy area to actual identifiable feathers. For this, I dip in to the reddish color that I used on the other wing. The reddish feathers with orangish tips are actually the pattern that appears on the tops of the wings, while the more grayish feathers with light spots (you can see some of them on the other wing) are what appear on the underside of the wings. But I want to create some visual consistency between the wings, so I decide to add some of the reddish feathers on the underside here too, and I’ll attempt to make a transition to the grayish feathers as I go.

Wish me luck.

The drizzly spring weather we’ve been having has made it a bit difficult to take progress photos that are as bright and bushy-tailed as some of our previous ones. So I hope you will all forgive me if the present ones are a little bit dark.

As you can see, I’ve now begun to address the wings. I know what I’m working towards visually, but the process itself is something I won’t necessarily be able to anticipate. I’m not sure, for example, that what I initially put down will end up being near to the completed product, or if I will need to continually work on the wings in phases while the rest of the painting develops with it. With that in mind, my main goal is to get down the basic idea I have in my head–and which I’ve already fleshed out in the comp drawing–within the correct color scheme that I’ve chosen. This roughly translates to: what you see is not necessarily what you get.

Since the background is primarily blue, and since I intend to give our friend Icarus a brilliant blue bit of drapery as well, I thought it would be a nice touch to make the wings very colorful and warm, using yellows, oranges and deep earthy reds. Pure white wings are–in my opinion–fairly boring, predictable, and might be misconstrued as a religious angelic undertone in my theme. Art historians will see the irony in this, considering the fact that early paintings of angels often featured highly chromatic wings. These days, however, the more my wings look like regular bird wings, the less our hero is likely to be confused with your friendly neighborhood airborne symbol of Christianity, et al.

As I work on the leftmost wing, I’m more and more convinced that my progress will be fairly indicative of the painting’s final appearance.

It’s helpful to tackle the smaller of the two wings first, because it’s easier to work within that more limited area, and it will help to serve as a model for the larger, more complicated wing to come.