Matthew Bird

Maryland, USA, Winter, watercolor, 22 x 28" (56 x 71 cm)

Finalist

My Inspiration

We enjoy decorating our home seasonally celebrating the change in weather and upcoming holidays. One day my girls excitedly brought home a big bag of mixed nuts in their shells and wanted to use their flimsy Nutcracker toy to open them. Knowing that would be the last of the Nutcracker’s jaw, I got out traditional nutcracker pliers. The activity soon became the inspiration for this painting complete with my favorite bright colors of the winter season: the red Nandina berries, pears and currant wine, the green artichoke and the exuberant citrus color of kumquats. To me, this piece has a holiday feel but I refrained from using elements that were overtly holiday specific so that the painting can be enjoyed year-round.

My Design Strategy

This painting has a lot going on, so it’s important that the design moves the eye around the image in a comfortable way. Progressing clockwise from the berries, the branches point to the outside contour of the decanter, the angles of the cloth napkin and nutcracker break the table edge and bridge an otherwise dead space to keep the eye moving inward. Because I work in a highly realistic style, it’s important for the viewer to be able to linger and take in all the details, and I design my compositions with this in mind.

My Working Process

Gathering the perfect items and then arranging the table so that everything works is an important part of my process. As a realistic watercolorist, having everything correct at the beginning is crucial. The medium is not forgiving, and fixing big mistakes once you start is almost impossible. When I’m happy with the composition, I transfer it to my paper. All of the foreground elements are masked and I applied an underpainting of Prussian blue. Then the black is built up in layers using a custom mix. I then I worked back to front, left to right, starting with the Nandina and finishing with the kumquats.