How to Finish the Layout for Acrylic Feather Painting

Video Transcript

"As you see, it's very solid. You can't even really tell what it is at this stage. Kind of think of it as a silhouette shot. There's no detail in it. All the detail you're going to have is the surrounding edges. If you're going to do a portrait of a profile of an animal, the edges have to be accurate and they have to show where the ears are of the hair is, because that will be the basis to your detail design. Also, how I picked the feather for each design that I'm doing, basically the color of the feather has a lot to do with it. If I'm going to do an animal that is a light color like say this bobcat is, I'll pick something that is a little darker background. With him, actually he's going to be a little bit darker, so I'm using a lighter feather for him. Basically, depending on if there's going to be a lot of black hair or dark hair, I'd use a lighter feather for that. There's not much detail in this. As I show it to you, you're not going to be able to see really so much what the design is. You can go back later on if you feel like you've made a mistake or you made the eye too high. What I do occasionally is try to match the backdrop of the feather and use that color as a wash. Go in there and basically hide your mistake. I'll show you a little bit of that later. I try not to paint over the design of the feather itself. That just adds a lot of interest and it shows people that it really is a feather. It's not something that you've painted yourself. It's the feather itself with the design."