Good afternoon, Palm Sunday is a beautiful time to take a few moments to visit with you, on this important question. Let's say you love birds and over the years you have admired seeing wildlife paintings with birds. However, in the past you have not followed up to purchase original art, but now today you have decided you want to brighten your home with beautiful bird paintings. I am speaking about original paintings not prints on paper, but real signed paintings by the artist. Craftsmanship in the arts can have many meanings, however, all artists are not created equal, since each artist has developed his or her own definition based on his or her process being used to paint. Being a scientist before becoming a painter has many advantages, in my studio I have developed very special and unique coatings to prepare each surface before painting. My coatings are not just a Gesso acrylic coating, but is an elaborant mixture of 4 different inorganic minerals from the earth, and one man made. When painting with my water base oils, W&N Artisan Oils I paint in thin layers with linseed oil and when painting in many other mediums, acrylic, casein, watercolor, other oil brands, those paints do not generate the degree of reflectance and luminosity. These two optical properies generate the ultimate beauty in the finished painting as natural light passes through the layers of color and the multiple layers of my coating. Going back to my special coating, my technique uses 4 distinct layers over the surface of my ultra smooth wood board and no sanding in-between the coating layers. Another aspect of my coating is that when dry has a slight red tone and and is not a bright white.  This slightly toned surface generates a natural show through and glow, also helping the reflectance of light and what the eye sees. Going back centuries, artists of those days did not have many of today's supports to paint on, however, wood being present was one of the main supports. To this day those old wood board oil paintings are near perfect with no cracks in the oils. However on the flexible canvas or woven linen the oil paints over time tend to crack and require restoration, else the paintings become ruined. My painting support of choice is a 1/2" thick wood board, because when painting my original bird paintings I love the ultra smooth surface for painting fine details. The weave of the canvas or linen interferes with my painting and does not lend to superior optical quality which is my ultimate goal of each painting. Once my painting is dry to touch, usually in 2-3 days, I lightly varnish and dry before shipping to my customer.

This is a very detailed account of my daily Craftsmanship that goes into each painting, no short cuts are taken and my work is guaranteed archival too, so can be passed down within your family from generation to generation, keeping the ultimate in quality for centuries. I have been developing and perfecting my techniques since 1991, and I continue today.

In my painting for today of Yellow Legs, called " Shoreline Colors" found in Crex Meadows, all the above steps have been used to create this unique oil painting on wood board. I am going to be continuing to share my painting techniques in a series of step by step painting from the sketch to the finished painting, so stay tuned.

Thanks for your visit and be sure to ask many good questions when buying original art, because all art is not created equal. My art can be seen here on FASO, my sales are directed each week on ebay and my ebay prices are below my National sale prices because 90% of all my paintings are sold on-line on ebay. Watch my ebay site weekly as I post between 2-3 new, original oil paintings per week. Many Thanks!

Jim Springett wildlife painter

Called, " Shoreline Colors"