Painting like a toddler

A while ago I spent way too many hours trying to engrave a birdy on stone slate. I went through quite a few tests and each pretty much took 4 hours to complete. So it is a bit irritating that I only really have two that are passable. They still aren't perfect but I am also at my fuck this shit point so whatever.

One of the tests was with engraving through a black enamel coating, and it did give very nice default contrast which helps a lot to see things even when the light flattens everything. Hence the need for contrast and many tests.

So I decided it is time to try out painting and maybe I can salvage it a bit. Since the engraving also did not cut through many bits and completely destroyed some details on other bits. Maybe painting can make it all look rather intentional. With drawing focus to the bits I think are ok.

So obviously I made the birdy white, and focused on adding light from the top left. Since the engraving failed completely to cut through the enamel on the bottom right of the birds wing and body. Instead of manually grinding away the heavily shaded area like I did with the left wing, I just let it be.

It actually displays a lot brighter in photos, but the bottom parts of the birdy or shaded parts are only a shade whiter than the gray stone.

Then I focused on the ornamental bits. I kinda wanted to get a nice gold but to get that I would need a lot more layers of the yellow and brown orange I have vs mixing. In the end I just accepted the mid copper stage I eventually got and rolled with it. Again I tried making the top left brighter to keep with my decided light direction.

I also added yellow light to the highlight of the bird and really pushed the vibrancy of the rays by its head.

I am not too sure of whether I even care to paint the flowers. If I do it will likely be very dark tones almost dark gray red-purple-greens.