ENA MCINNIS

Wild Turkey Feather

Ena originally thought she had a Red-Tailed Hawk feather on her drawing board but had to laugh when her majestic bird turned out to be a Wild Turkey!

This feather is approximately 12 inches long and was painted life size over a period of several months. ...
Usually a very speedy painter, Ena took her time to get the details just right, to great success.
Congratulations, Ena... it was worth the wait!

ENA MCINNIS

Feathers... Chapter II

These two single feathers, a Flicker and a Mallard, were Ena's first coloured ones. 

She's done a remarkable job recreating the iridescence on the Mallard feather, and the curving orange spine of the Flicker feather disappearing into its dark markings.

Simple and elegant...

Mallard

Another glimmering Mallard feather with it curly counterpart...


African Grey Parrot




























Ena's neighbour is a big, beautiful African Grey called Roger Featherer... (true story).

Despite his grey description he also has these remarkably vivid orange feathers, beautifully displayed in this lighthearted composition. 

The grey feather here is rendered in a very soft and subtle way, with its gentle orange blush, very true to the original. 

ENA MCINNIS

Heron

Ena's been painting feathers, lots of feathers... and been doing a marvelous job.
They're very hard to photograph and get the tiny, soft details of these down feathers. 
This painting conveys their light airiness very well, both in its handling and composition.


Gull or Pigeon?





















The shiny highlight and subtle grey tones of this feather are beautifully conveyed. The split at the top of the feather echoes the down at the base and makes a wonderful point of interest.


Heron

Ena lives near a Heron nesting sight and collected a great array of feathers in varying grey and white tones like the pair above and below, both from the same part of the bird but distinct in colour and texture.

It's been great watching Ena paint these feathers. This post feature some of her shades of grey, with some colour to follow in another post. Stay tuned...

ENA MCINNIS

Apple - jazz

It's been a year since Ena first came to the studio and she hasn't done much painting since then, but these apples confirm my theory that even when we aren't able to do the actual action, something in us is ripening still. Once the brain absorbs the lesson, it paints, with or without the hand.

She painted two version of the same apple, one for each of her children :-))

Tomato

While the shape may be simple (something Ena is fond of as she likes to get right to the painting!) it's quite difficult to get the shine and subtle modeling of this subject. Not to mention the watery inner life hidden beneath that three-alarm colour. It's hard to see in the photograph but she even managed to depict the fuzzy hairs on the stem.

Garlic

This first attempt at painting the papery garlic bulb pleased Ena less than the one that followed, though she prefers the roots in this one. 

This version is more delicately painted... the whiteness of the paper casing coming through in all it's subtlety. 

It's been a real pleasure and a wonderful surprise to see the great improvements in Ena's painting despite the long pause. All this work was done over the past 8 weeks!

 ERICA WEISS

Silver Dollar Seed Pods  

Delicate and sensitively painted studies.

ENA  MCINNIS

Figs

In this picture Ena's first fig painting is on the bottom right. While lovely and loose, she wanted to achieve a smoother, more realistic surface, which she has begun to do in the other two paintings.

MARY FROST

Snow Peas

Mary's first attempt using masking fluid to retain the veining details.

She found it very difficult to get a thin enough line with the fluid and in the end she's sworn off the stuff. Some people love it, others not so much. There seems to be little middle ground with masking fluid. It's worth experimenting with to find out where you stand.

Mary's snow pea studies in order of appearance:

In the above image she over-painted in an attempt to deepen the image and create more dimension. She was unsure of how to tone her colours into shadow and instead kept adding more green hoping to create darkness and depth. The result was too heavy and opaque without actually achieving shadows.

After learning how to grey her greens down into some shadow tones and ditching the masking fluid she started again and experimented with a lighter hand. Still, she found this one too grey and some areas over-painted.

Still unsatisfied Mary persisted and attempted a third painting.
The colours are more alive and the shadows more natural.
There's a lot of subtle painting in this study.

She decided to stop at this point, exhausted but happy with her efforts!


Chinese Lanterns

Promising beginnings....