 ROSALIEThe artist shares her creative process People often ask me how I go about choosing a subject, then creating a work of art...well, here's how "Mr and Mrs Gang-Gang" took shape... I like to draw from a reference photo (as many artists do), so the first step is usually an "expedition" to get some good photos - I'm very lucky to have a bird photographer (Beverley) on call! As it happens, neither of us had actually seen gang-gangs in the wild until this year, so we made a plan. Beverley is also the research assistant and travel planner: she will squirrel around on eBird, as well as see who is photographing which birds where as per Insta or Facebook or Twitter, then we chat about possible destinations and itineraries. For gang-gang cockatoos, it was pretty easy: we headed for the Glenrowan Caravan Park, quite a hotspot (see our blog from that trip).  Once we return, Beverley's photos get processed and edited, and so on, and then I sift through them, seeing what's going to work for me. From this trip, the gang-gangs taken at the water fountain at the caravan park really fit the bill. There were several juveniles, the males with less vivid, red heads and more patchy colour. Luckily, there were adult males - as well as females balancing on branches near the fountain, and diving in to have a drink. I studied all the photos for a number of days - even months - before I decided on the composition of this artwork. As artists, we're encouraged to try and have three objects in a piece of art rather than two, but in this case, I wanted a pair of the birds looking as if they are having a private conversation. For example, they could be like a couple discussing how to stop the kids spending too much time on the screen. Beverley's reference photo had the female facing to the left so I flipped the image so the male and the female are facing more or less the same way having this conversation. Then I drew the image.  A work in progress In painting the birds, I started with the eyes. Most wildlife artists would tell you do the eyes first, because if the eyes aren’t right, the picture won’t be right. I used some masking fluid to preserve the highlights and parts of the skin around the eyes, and I made a mix using some of the red used for the males face along with a blue grey mix that I used for the both birds feathers. I did the beaks next because again I felt if the beaks weren’t right, the birds wouldn’t be right. The gang-gangs' beaks are so expressive! The male’s beak doesn’t close quite properly: the bottom beak closes to the right of his top beak giving him a lopsided grin. The female seems to have damage to her beak and some regrowth. Both birds' beaks are fairly grubby, so I mixed some pinkish colours and some grey colours to mimic the colours in the photo and left parts of the beaks white to make them stand against the backdrop of the feathers. Next I worked on the male's decorative head feathers: again, if these didn’t work, the whole picture wasn’t going to work. I used a Silver ultra mini 20/0 brush to get the fine lines, and I used a mixture of red, yellows, oranges and white to get the texture of the feathers. I added a little bit of grey and left some blank areas to imitate the feathers on the bird. Next I used a grey blue mix for the male's feathers (using brushes Neef Taklon 000 and 10/0). Using light to medium colour, I painted each feather, trying to imitate the shapes in the reference photo, leaving the edges white. On the photo the feathers have white or yellow edges on the male and reddish edges on the female. I then went back in with a pale yellow to the feathers that had the yellow edges and then with the Silver 20/0 brush I “drew” in individual lines to get the detail. I used a similar colour and technique on the female, but to make her appear to be slightly behind the male I gave her slightly different coloured feathers. Hers are entirely made up of fine stripes. I preserved the edges and used a slightly different red than the male before doing the final texture into each feather. I'm often asked how long it takes me to do an art work, and occasionally I’ve tallied up the hours. In this case I’ve been working on the project for three weeks roughly 2 to 4 hours most days.So this one took somewhere between 45 and 50 hours. Some of that time has been just looking at pictures, drawing the composition, revising the composition until it is right, and mixing colours and doing test swatches. I’ll test techniques on a scrap good quality paper to see how that will work before I do it on the artwork itself. Sometimes I work away at the painting always looking at the reference photo to try to get the placement of feathers from the lines in the right place but until I finish an area of work I don’t really know how it’s going to turn out, and that’s part of the adventure in doing art! When an artwork is finished, I think about naming the piece, and I usually try and choose a title that adds to the story. For example, I recently did a watercolour of a male and female Victoria's rifle birds. I chose to call that one "The Listener" because the male was clearly not getting a word into that conversation! For this one, I went with the straight "Mr and Mrs Gang-Gang" title to emphasise their status as a couple, doing all the things that couples usually do, including discussing the kids. The gang-gang cockatoo is a beautiful bird, sadly endangered, especially after the bushfires of 2020 and the clearing of forests. It is a welcome visitor to our reserves and forests in Victoria in winter. Lucky Canberra has them as visitors much more frequently. I hope I have conveyed some of the character of the birds, a certain twinkle in the eye and mischievous smile conveyed with their beak and I hope that this makes the onlooker interested in conserving and helping these beautiful cockatoos. I am always open to feedback and hearing others' reactions, so please feel free to leave a comment or question. I hope you enjoy my work.  The finished artwork: Mr and Mrs Gang-Gang
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