The second painting is of a recognisable species; it is a red headed barbet which is found in South America. I’ve kept to the actual colours fairly accurately. Recently I’ve tended to choose birds with bright colours and mostly species which I’ve never actually seen. The colours of the birds suggest what other colours to use; for example I often use complementary colours (they are the colours opposite each other on a colour wheel). Here, blue is the complementary colour for orange, so together they seem more vivid.
As with the first painting, I’ve positioned the bird on a lotus; in this one the lotus is more obviously a throne or altar. I painted the shower of petals thinking of the Sunday Festivals at Throssel Buddhist Monastery. During the ceremony a monk weaves in and out of the walking congregation showering everyone with artificial petals. I also seem to remember showers of flowers being described in The Lotus Sutra.
I hope both stillness and activity are conveyed in the painting – the stillness of the bird and the activity of the petals.
Note; In some of the tales about the previous lives of the historical Buddha he is ‘king of the wild geese.’ This is one reason why geese are depicted so often in Chinese and Japanese Buddhist art. There is also a charming Buddhist ‘Conference of the Birds’ where Avalokitesvara is transformed into a cuckoo and the rest of the birds gather round while he expounds the Dharma. For anyone interested in reading this it is included in Penguin Buddhist Scriptures.
The painting is acrylic on board, 34cms x 30 cms