Painting a Nature Diptych: Building a Large Bird & Botanical Oil Painting

I've finally begun a large nature diptych that's been swimming around in my head for almost a year. It's made up of two 75 × 50 cm oil paintings, one light and one dark, filled with birds, flowers and layered botanical forms. This is the largest scale I've worked at in years. With every painting, I try to push myself into something I haven't attempted before, or haven't explored for a long time.

These paintings together are not about negative & positive qualities but rather a meditation on balance and all the necessary parts of our inner and outer selves needed to navigate life as complex, intelligent animals. Opposite qualities help us grow. We need hope and instinct. Ease and discipline. Celebration and survival. This pair grew from that idea.

The left canvas shows an egret, proteas, tropical leaves, and citrus branches. It’s full of bright, generous energy. The right canvas shows two starlings, dark flowers, berries, and a mass of deep leaves. It’s darker overall, but there’s a richness I'm working to convey. I don’t see these two panels as simple opposites. One isn’t “good” while the other is “bad”. They’re more like two sides of the same living thing.

An early watercolour sketch to clarify colour choices and resolve the composition.

The light panel oil painting

I've begun with bright ground colours, which I aim to leave showing through as I build up more layers. The left panel has a bright cadmium yellow ground. That first layer matters because it sets the mood before any bird, leaf, or flower appears. Even when most of it gets covered, little edges and flashes will still show through later. That yellow gives the whole panel a feeling of warmth and lift. It sits behind the egret, the proteas, the tropical leaves, and the citrus branches like sunlight shining through the layers.

This side of the painting leans towards:

• Abundance

• Celebration

• Ease

• Dreams

• Play

• Hope

  
  

The egret brings a calm, elegant presence. There’s something composed about an egret, even when its body is all angles and long lines. It's the hero of this panel, showing a stillness that helps hold the busier plant forms around it. It felt like the natural choice for this side of the painting because it seems completely at ease in its surroundings.

The proteas carry a bolder kind of beauty. They’re not delicate in a fragile way. They feel generous, architectural, and a little wild. Proteas are personal to me. Growing up in South Africa, they're a plant that immediately feels like home. Paired with citrus branches and tropical leaves, they push the panel towards growth and pleasure. This is the part of the painting that breathes out.

The dark panel oil painting

I began this canvas with a layer of Permanent Rose. It's an unexpectedly bright colour for a dark painting, but I wanted warmth to glow through the shadows rather than letting them become flat. The vivid pink ground helps the deeper colours retain warmth and energy as the layers build.

This side includes two starlings, dark gladiolus flowers, berries, and dense leaves. It’s a more guarded world than the one in the left panel. The forms feel closer together. The space feels more hidden. There’s more watchfulness in it.

The ideas behind this panel include:

• Survival

• Instinct

• Cunning

• Discipline

• Cooperation

• Ambition

  
  

Starlings felt right for this side. They’re clever birds. They move well together, adapt quickly, and carry a kind of restless social energy. They’re beautiful too, but not in a soft or obvious way. Their dark feathers can catch unexpected colour, making them perfect for a panel that lives in the shade yet still has life moving through it. Their feathers look black from a distance, but catch greens, blues and purples as they move.

The dark flowers add another note. Staggered amongst the gnarled branches, they mirror and balance the birds, without disappearing into the darkness. Alongside berries and heavy leaves, they help build a sense of intensity.

The first few layers shown over the bright ground cover colours of cadmium yellow and permanent rose.

Why paint these together?

What interests me most is the space and contrast between the two panels.

The light side carries hope, ease, and the sense of being able to open. The dark side carries the skills needed when life asks for sharpness and restraint. Both are useful. Both are part of being alive.

I’ve been thinking about the inner and outer selves we use to move through the world. We need softness, play, and trust. We also need instinct, discipline, and the ability to read a room. We need to flourish, but we also need to survive. As complex animals, we move constantly between those states.

Birds make good metaphors for people. They migrate, adapt, compete, cooperate, sing, defend territory and survive. They're both beautiful and resilient.

The buildup of layers

I’m keeping the colour range limited. Aside from black and white, I'm using:

• Winsor blue

• Permanent rose

• Raw sienna

• Sap green

A small set of colours helps me control the colour palette and keeps the two canvases connected, even though one is light and the other is dark. It also means the greens, shadows, warm tones, and bird colours all come from the same family of mixtures. That gives the final pair a stronger sense of belonging together.

I've experimented over the last year with a looser approach to painting. For this diptych, I am building up many layers with loose marks rather than trying to resolve each section too early.

So far, the bright ground colours are down, Cadmium Yellow for the light panel and Permanent Rose for the dark panel. I've begun placing local colour without trying to finish anything, working loosely across different sections instead. As I build it up, I aim to leave the whole painting open for as long as possible, using a mixture of flatter and more transparent marks. Glimpses of the earlier layers will remain visible through the finished top layers.

What I’m focused on as the painting grows

At this stage, the main thing is to keep the energy alive. With dense compositions, there’s always a risk of overworking. Too much tidying can make a painting feel stiff. I want the looseness to stay visible, especially in the leaves and flowers.

I’m also watching the balance between detail and suggestion. The birds need clarity, and the plants need structure to feel lush and defined. But I still want the lower layers to show through the surface.

My aim is to offer two moods in one piece. Contrast itself is the theme. The left panel has the brightness of growth and celebration. The right panel has the pull of shadow, instinct, and quiet resolve. Together, they’re becoming a reminder that balance isn’t a fixed state. It’s something living, shifting, and alert. A bright egret and two dark starlings. Citrus and berries. Bright proteas, with darker, denser flowers, yellow beneath one world, rose beneath the other.

As my work progresses, I'll update this blog post. If you're interested in following along, please subscribe to receive updates via email. I don't send them often, but I would prefer to share more about my work away from the noisy world of social media. Your data is always kept private, and you can unsubscribe at any time.