Post #283459 by Sneakytiki on Tue, Feb 6, 2007 4:12 AM

Here is another birdman, this one was done before the Rapa-nui painting above. There was a really bad amateur oil painting on a canvas board in the trash down town and I covered this with a puzzle that was missing 10 pieces which my daughter was throwing out. I streaked on red acrylic into white gesso and then decided to paint a bird man on it, my sketchbooks saved the day as I had copied this image into them years back. The source book and some of my other hard to find native am. craft and image books were borrowed by some Indian friends of mine years ago and I really need them back. The image lacked punch on the busy background so I outlined it in aboriginal Aus./SW native american "dot" style using latex house paint, still not satisfied, I added a yellow glaze to the bird-man's innards and beefed up the painted outline with more paint thickness before switching to sharpie marker to finish it up. I had the board border as white, then black and finally black with white latex dots, I spilled latex on the dot field alot and ended up touching up the dot stars with the black sharpie again. All that acrylic and latex on the border is over laying a nice layer of oil paint so it may crumble off eventually and make a weird patina in the process. I hit the puzzle painting with an orbital sander to give some cardboard exposure and sealed the painting with varnish. Whew! blah blah!

Here is an image taken from a precolombian stone pipe found with this engraving in the eastern woodlands of the US. The original was much more assymetrical and of course, an engraving, so not in color. It looks to be an eagleman/bird man/thunder being. Kinda opposite of Easter island with a human head/bird wings and feet rather than vice versa. This is on one of the hollow log drums I made years ago.

To drown sorrow, where should one jump first and best? "Certainly not water. Water rusts you." -Frank Sinatra

[ Edited by: Sneakytiki 2007-04-01 12:50 ]