The sandpiper bird is often seen running along the beach right at the edge of the water. They run in and out with the ocean waves looking for food. Sandpipers are small birds and are often in groups with other sandpipers and sometimes other shorebirds. This original acrylic painting shows three sandpiper birds running along the skimming water of the ocean waves. Below I describe how to paint these sandpiper birds.
Sandpiper Bird Details
I have painted the details of each bird in different poses as they look for food along the sand. I used a variety of warm brown colors for the bird feathers. Along with yellow ochre and raw sienna for the lighter shades on the head and back of the sandpiper.
Painting Sand
The texture of the sand is spattered on for the finest grains of sand with white, browns and blue color. I added small pebbles and larger rocks to add variety to the original painting. One of the most important features of this painting is the shadows. I painted the shadow of each bird with a transparent brown using a 1″ flat brush. Where the shadow crosses onto the wave for the top right sandpiper I used a darker grey for the shadow of the foamy water. After I was happy with the birds shadow I finished adding the rock and wave shadows.
Painting the Water
I started with several layers of blue paint adding a suggestion of waves at the top and using a lighter shade as the water gets closer to the sand. When that was dry I glazed over the blue with the sand color for the shallow water near the waters edge. The water has foam trails as the wave recedes back into the ocean. I used a light blue grey for the foam adding white at the front edge closest to the sand.
Those are the steps for hand painting the sandpiper bird painting shown above. If you have any questions please use the comment box below or send an email on the contact page. Thanks for reading and signup for emails of new posts using the form to the left.
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