Never Seen
2017
The story behind... Never Seen
Do toucans come out at night? Maybe this one think it’s an owl. Pictured normally perched in lush rainforests, but never in front of a full moon! Perhaps it’s quite normal, who knows? The inspiration behind this painting was my love of toucans - their bright feathers and beautiful long beaks - and the full moon, which frames the toucan.
You'll notice I changed my mind about the background colour at one point. Green, though it goes well with the colours in the toucan, seemed too distracting, so I changed it to blue which I think works better.
Trying different colours for the background
I duplicated some smaller versions of my painting before adding the background colour to the painting, and printed them out. Using coloured pencils, I shaded in different background colours to see how the toucan looked against them. Initially I thought green worked well - then I realised it was overpowering the toucan, when I started painting the background green! So I had a rethink and tried blue - which seems to complement the toucan much better, without taking focus away from the bird.
Finished painting
