Using sable to paint barring on feathers

      With some trepidation, I began painting the barring on the wing and tail feathers using the newly arrived sable paint.  I followed the directions in the workbook, except that I adding barring to both the underside and topside of the wing at one time.  The workbook would have me finish all of the painting on the underside of the wing before even starting on the top, but it seemed more efficient to do all the barring at once.  The sable paint, being airbrush paint, has a slightly different consistency than the paint I have been using, but I practiced a little before applying it to the carving.  The results of today's three hours of painting are shown in the photos below.  The top two photos show the underside, the bottom two photos show the topside.

     Looking at the photos just now, I see I have a little work to do on the topside of the tail, but otherwise the paint job looks OK to me.  The washes of sable that will be applied over the barring will add more detail to the feathers, as will some highlights using the base coats and a little warm white.  There will be a wash or two of sable over the entire topside of the body and wings to darken the nutmeg color to a deeper brown.  Now that I have the sable, I can also paint the "face", especially the dark stripe that extends from the eyes back toward the back.  

     The painting is going faster and better than I thought, and I am encouraged.  Today's three hours or so of painting brings the total time to 121 hours.  Wow.