My friend Teresa is hosting a garden party in a few weeks. Her gardens are filled with old-fashioned roses, lush perennials, and towering trees. Picket fences, birdhouses, and quirky garden sculptures act as accents, and a beautiful greenhouse built from recycled materials sits in the middle of it all.
This won’t be just any garden party, though. There’s going to be a silent auction of donated artwork from area artists, and a well-known professional artist will be painting in the garden throughout the evening, with the painting being auctioned off at 8 pm. All the proceeds from artwork sales will go to a non-profit that Teresa and her husband started for a mission in Liberia, Africa. A new church building and a hand-dug well are the latest projects their foundation is supporting.
That brings me to this painting…
I’ve always wanted to try painting a bird’s nest. I’ve long admired Jean Mackay‘s glorious nest and egg sketches, but was intimidated by the complexity of the subject, so I put off trying it for years. Then when Teresa asked me to donate a painting for her fundraiser, I thought I’d dive in and finally attempt to do a watercolor of a robin’s nest with three perfect blue eggs.
I pulled out a 9 x 12 block of 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico Extra White watercolor paper and began by painting wet-in-wet washes: warm golds and tans (Raw Sienna, Yellow Ochre, & Burnt Sienna) in the nest area, and yellows and greens for the leaves and branches (Yellow Ochre, Prussian Blue, Burnt Sienna, & Ultramarine Blue).
After the base wash had dried, I defined a few leaves and stems, wet-on-dry.
I used masking fluid to preserve some of the lightest values/colors. A ruling pen gave me the fine lines I needed for the grasses that wove in and out.
After the masking fluid had dried, I painted more strands with slightly darker watercolor, then masked again, then painted more twigs and grasses, then masked again, and so on…
I touched in some of the darkest darks (Prussian Blue + Burnt Sienna) between the grasses with the tip of a round brush.
After the nest was 90% complete, I painted the eggs using a mixture of Cobalt Teal Blue, Cerulean Blue, and Cobalt Blue. For the shadows, I added a little Quinacridone Magenta.
To finish off the nest, I mixed touches of concentrated watercolor (Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, & Ultramarine Blue) with white gouache and used a liner brush to paint strands of grasses. The opaque paint made these lighter lines stand out and come to the foreground.
Finally, I used a spatter screen to spatter some of the opaque paint onto the nest to give it a looser, more spontaneous look.
There were a lot of steps involved in creating this painting of a robin’s nest and three perfect turquoise eggs. Now it’s all dressed up in a mat and frame, and it’s ready for its debut at the garden party a few weeks from now.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that somebody will like it enough to take it home. And I hope Teresa’s African mission fundraiser is a huge success.
PS – If you’d like to order a print of this painting, visit my online shop at FineArtAmerica.com. All proceeds from the sale of any prints will go to the mission project.
PPS – My nest painting ended up selling for $500 at the fundraiser auction. A total of $17,000 was raised that night – enough to build an entire church in Liberia!
18 Comments
Beautiful as usual, Leslie. Thank you . Betty
Thanks, Betty. I’d like to try another one, now that I learned so much from this one. I think I’d like to do one with an ink drawing as a base for the watercolor.
This is lovely and i am sure someone will buy it. It looks like a lot of work but going for a good cause. So kind of you to donate this.
Thank you, Jeanne.
Beautiful job! I am also a fan of Jean Mackay’s work-this looks just as fabulous.
She’s amazing! I LOVE everything she does. And, besides being a fabulous watercolorist, she’s deep and insightful, and has a way with words.
Challenging project to be sure. But you nailed it as usual. Lovely. Someone is sure to want this reminder of God’s master work. Thanks for sharing the process with us.
I should do a step-by-step lesson with process photos one of these days. I just didn’t have time when I was doing this one. Sounds like a good reason to paint another nest!
Did you use a photo Leslie?
I was a nest watcher this past spring in our arboretum here in Boston and have beautiful pics of a chickadee nest with 7 little eggs as well as the nestlings so I might try to paint the nest as you described above. They have a very neat little
nest lined with fur.
I am in Uganda now traveling to Rwanda next week so I hope the painting and fundraiser are a big success.!
Yes, I had a photo I took two years ago at Summerhill. Robins built a nest most years in the dogwood tree next to the front porch, and it was low enough that I could stand on a ladder to take pictures. I’d love to see your photos of the chickadee nest. Maybe we could both attempt a painting.
Enjoy your trip!
Please let us know if you decide to make prints of this, I know already that I want to buy one!
Thank you
Hi Karen – I’ve uploaded it to my online art gallery at FineArtAmerica.com where you can order prints in any size – matted, framed, or printed on canvas. Here’s a link that you can copy and paste: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/robins-nest-leslie-fehling.html It should take you to the nest painting. Hope you enjoy it! 🙂
Leslie,
It is beautiful! I discovered a nest in a blueberry bush when I was weeding in the garden. It’s family had flown the coop! I am busy working on my piece for the silent auction. It has been fun to try something new. Have a happy day!
I’m looking forward to seeing what you’re making. I’m sure it will be wonderful, whether it’s a painting or fiber art. See you at the party!
Very lovely! Thank for sharing. Nancy Hoffman
Leslie, I love the painting and your step by step – thank you for sharing. Question – exactly what is a ‘liner brush’?
A liner brush is also called a rigger. It’s a long skinny brush that works really well for painting grasses, twigs, telephone lines, etc.
How did I almost miss this post. Glad I didn’t. I wish the bird family could see the beautiful job you did.