Barn Swallow Chicks

by Conni Schaftenaar

Title

Barn Swallow Chicks

Artist

Conni Schaftenaar

Medium

Painting - Watercolor On Paper

Description

Watercolor painting of barn swallow chicks in their nest in our barn. The swallows add so much to life on our farm, from the funny mud nests with the cute babies in them to the amazing job they do of keeping flying pests to a minimum!

This is a rework in 2018 of a painting I had done in 2013, just beginning my second year of painting ANYTHING and not using watercolors correctly. I loved how the chicks turned out, considering my lack of knowledge and skill at the time, but I did not love some of the nest details and background. At some point, I may start from scratch to paint this image from my photo, but for now, I settled for softening the background, modifying nest details (they really are just globs of mud!) and adding a barn beam. In reality, the nest was "glued" by the parent swallows onto the face of a 2x12 rafter, so in my original painting, without that beam detail, it just looked like it was floating in space. It always bugged me that I couldn't make it look accurate, so I've now taken some artistic license and added a beam. There are nests around my barn sitting on a beam like this, so I haven't erred too badly in the depiction!

Honorable Mention tie in the Birds contest, July 2021
Honorable Mention tie in the Multiple Subjects contest, December 2021

Featured in these FAA groups:
Birds, Animals and Nature, September 2015
Bird Watchers, November 2015
Poetic Poultry, January 2016
FAA Portraits - Birds, October 2019
For The Birds, June 2022

Uploaded

April 11th, 2014

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