hoopoe Illustration
We've set our mind to painting the Hoopoe next. Although a hoopoe is slightly more common bird we still knew that it will be hard to find some good reference. I haven't seen a hoopoe in our area since last summer. With spring so close we knew that it might be possible to find one. On our first walk around the block we were quite lucky to find one about 1km from home. Its also worth mentioning that we walked just before dawn when all the birds come out to snack before the evening.
We were quite lucky finding the bird, but we weren't as lucky photographing it. Our second walk was during the hottest time of the day and we most certainly didn't find anything.
The next day I was walking outside to find that there was a hoopoe snacking just there in the yard. It was an old hoopoe. I took the camera and sat about 10-20m from the bird. The challenge now started to and photograph the bird with his "crown" lifted. This bird only lifted his crown slightly about three times, and my timing didn't work out that great. The third time it lifted its crown was when a younger Hoopoe decided to join the food fest. This young bird was a lot more active and after a while of eating it walked straight to me and decided to chill about 2 meters from me. There I got all the reference that I needed.
The Hoopoe is painted with gouache on mid tone brown/orange paper. The grass was added with imitation gold leave (brass).
We were quite lucky finding the bird, but we weren't as lucky photographing it. Our second walk was during the hottest time of the day and we most certainly didn't find anything.
The next day I was walking outside to find that there was a hoopoe snacking just there in the yard. It was an old hoopoe. I took the camera and sat about 10-20m from the bird. The challenge now started to and photograph the bird with his "crown" lifted. This bird only lifted his crown slightly about three times, and my timing didn't work out that great. The third time it lifted its crown was when a younger Hoopoe decided to join the food fest. This young bird was a lot more active and after a while of eating it walked straight to me and decided to chill about 2 meters from me. There I got all the reference that I needed.
The Hoopoe is painted with gouache on mid tone brown/orange paper. The grass was added with imitation gold leave (brass).
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| Riaan Coetzee, Hoopoe, 210 X 297mm, Gouache & imitation gold leaf on paper , 2017 |
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