Mute swans are something I never thought I would tackle as a subject since they are almost too beautiful to paint. After all, I often paint overlooked and unsung birds like sparrows, pigeons and the like. A swan is floating perfection–nary a feather out of place and unsullied despite being found in some murky waters in the Boston area. I have painted a few white birds like Great Egrets so I have gotten over the challenge of painting white anything. I have learned through observation that their is no such thing as “pure white.” The illusion of white or lightness in nature is influenced by the objects in the environment and the quality of the light.
I always bring my camera with me when I go birding in case I spot a rare species and need proof for identification. I also use my camera gather shots for reference in my paintings. This past spring I went birding in West Roxbury along the Charles River and while I came up short on early spring migrants, I spotted a pair of swans floating along the grassy banks. The river was fairly still and there were bits of snow and ice floating in the brownish water. The swans were quite far away and testing my zoom but I managed to get some photos to inspire a painting.
As far as reference material goes, this is a fairly monochromatic scene with a whole lot of different browns and not much else. As an artist, I get to take what I like (the swans) and change things I wasn’t so fond of (the beigey-browns) so I opted for yellow ochre for the lights and purples for shadows to add drama and punch up the scene overall.
Out birding again in October but this time in search of a Blue Grosbeak at Horn Pond in Woburn (a bird, alas, I did not spot). I did see lots of swans particularly in a lagoon near a community garden. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was in my eyes but I did manage to capture some swans in a heavily shaded area hence the lack of any distinct foliage in the background. When I got home to look at my photos I thought I ought to paint swans again to complement the painting I did earlier in the season.
The darks in the image look like black but there were really made up of greens and blues so I decided to punch up the blues heavily for this painting. The swan on the left was glaringly white to the point where it looked like a cardboard cutout. I tried to break this up with a variety of whites tinged with blues and purples and a little yellow. The swan on the right had more dramatic shadows and a great pose.
