One of my favorite shoreline birds are the sandpipers often seen scurrying back and forth with the incoming waves at the beach. This painting is in a horizontal format with a canvas size of 24″ x 8″. My first step is preparing the canvas with texture for this sandy scene. I stretched the canvas myself and then applied gesso that was tinted the orange color. After that was dry I rolled on a acrylic modeling paste to give the surface some texture and you can see the texture in the picture below. Follow along step by step of this oil painting of sandpiper birds running along the sand.
Placement of the Sandpiper Birds
Below is the start of this original oil painting on canvas. I want to get the placement of the birds on the canvas and I have done this with black oil paint. This is an important step to get a good composition and to have the birds look like they are running. The birds will not be black like they are here. This step is just for placement of the birds and to get my ideas onto the canvas.
Check back in a few days to see how this sandpiper bird oil painting progresses.
Love them and can’t wait to see how they progress!
Thanks Bonnie, I have been working on the sandpiper painting and it is coming along well. I will be updating the progress with another blog post today.