Let's Paint an Eastern Spinebill

Step by step watercolour painting class with Zinia King

The Eastern Spinebill has got to be one of my favourite birds. We have a regular visitor that frequents the salvia flowers by our back door. I love their earthy orange tones and long elegant beak. I drew this bird a while ago as an avian portrait of our artist friend Tony Hannan (it’s wearing his glasses and hat). I rediscovered the drawing recently and decided to finish it.

In today’s class I’m going to share with you some tips for painting this artwork. Paid subscribers will receive a how-to-draw sheet of an Eastern Spinebill for them to draw and anthropomorphise in any way they like. Paid subscribers will also receive a high-quality A4 PDF print for their walls.

If you’re not subscribed, you can download the how-to-draw sheet here for just $2.

Mix your colours to try and achieve the earthy orange tones of the Spinebill. You might like to mix some brown or burnt umber into your orange if it’s too vibrant.

Start laying down your lighter orange values first and then whilst the paint is still wet, drop in some darker values.

Once your oranges are all down, you can move onto your blues/purples. Just make sure that your oranges are dry before painting next to them as they may bleed. I almost never use black in a painting as I find it can make things look ‘dead’. If you want a blackish colour, consider mixing blue and brown together. In my art style, my colours are generally more vibrant as I look for the most colourful undertones in any part of a painting.

Remember in watercolours it’s good to work from light to dark. Once you have your base colour down, you can layer over the top with other colours. In this case, I’ve coloured in a bit of my line-work with a more vibrant purple.

Continue painting the bird and flowers using the same techniques. Embrace the mistakes, you are an imperfect human and any accidental colouring outside the lines makes the work more uniquely yours. Have fun and enjoy the meditative process!

If you enjoyed this little lesson and would like to do more, every month I post at least one art class here on Substack. This month, paid subscribers will receive a colouring-in sheet and printable artwork of the Eastern Spinebill. Letterbox Legends will also recieve a mini-print in the mail. It only costs $5 per month or $50 per year (AUD) for this and a bunch of other lovely stuff, why not consider subscribing?

I also teach in person classes around Adelaide (South Australia) and am available to visit your School or Library. Contact me here and check out my upcoming workshops here.

With love and a dose of whimsy,

Zinia King