Hummingbird Paintings

Hummingbird Art by Carol May

It is a pleasure doing hummingbird paintings of God's flying jewels.

These are done on archival aquabord. It is a hard-board to which a ph neutral kaolin clay had been applied. After the watercolor painting is thoroughly dry an acrylic fixative is sprayed on to protect and preserve the hummingbird art for many years of enjoyment.

Using my husband's hummingbird picture of a hummer on the feeder's perch for reference I changed the Ruby-throat Hummingbird to an Anna's Hummingbird. The Anna has a flared rose colored gorget and the same color on his head. This color made a beautiful painting with the red on the feeder. I did the painting on an 8x10 inch piece of Claybord' it is now called Aquabord made by Ampersand. I enjoy painting on this Aquabord. It takes the color well retaining brilliant colors which I enjoy. And the best thing is when the painting is dry it is sprayed with a sealer and then may be framed and displayed without glass. They make wonderful hummingbird gifts.

Several years ago, I started using textured Claybord after my husband and I did an outdoor art festival on the west coast of Florida. There were 60 mph wind gusts that day. I had a tent full of watercolor paintings done on Arches paper and framed under glass. We got afraid to have people come into the tent for fear that it would go over and people would get hurt from the glass. Besides that the large paintings covered with glass were very heavy to move around. So I started looking around for a different way to do watercolor painting and I found Claybord. I loved it and I have been using it ever since. And now they have changed it’s name to Aquabord, but it is the same archival support as before.

The Ruby-throated Hummer is the most wide-ranging hummingbird in the U.S. I painted this Ruby-throat Hummer and Daylily using watercolor on aquabord.




Tiny Treasures shows a couple of precious baby hummingbirds in their nest. Hummingbird nests are usually less than two inches in diameter. They put soft materials inside of the nest and often camouflage the outside of the nest with pieces of bark, moss or as shown in this painting pieces of lichens. The foreground leaves give the idea of how small the baby birds and their nests actually are. This truly is Art by Carol May because I have never seen a hummer nest in real life.

Where do hummingbirds build their nests?

I did a bunch of drippy paint in the background to simulate forest in this hummingbird art piece.

Where do hummingbird live and what types are in the United States?





The White-eared Hummingbird is a less frequent visitor to the US. Here is a male visiting a Columbine flower.

The purple and white flower looks great with the purple on the bird. I like to combine the bird and flower colors when doing hummingbird art.

I have shown the male Black-chinned Hummingbird with Liatris flowers that they feed from. The flower color also compliments the male's violet throat color in this hummingbird painting.



I was wondering what kind of hummingbird to paint next and I had a vision of a female hummingbird flying up to a petunia flower. Thank God for His gifts and ideas. So here came the painting Lady's Eye-view.

Is this a prophetic painting?

This painting and the previous painting are done on textured claybord which adsorbs the paint into the panel making the colors softer than when done on a smooth claybord. Claybord, by the way is not a misspelling of the word board. It is a brand name of an art support manufactured by Ampersand.



Here is another painting done on textured aquabord. I am doing part of these hummingbird paintings on smooth claybord and the other half of the hummingbird paintings on textured claybord which is now called aquabord. Can you tell which is which?

This female hummingbird flying through the spray of a sprinkler for Lady's Bath.

We have a fountain spray head to fill our bird bath and I have seen the hummingbirds flying through the spray. What fun they have!

What is the best way to attract wildlife to your yard?

The flowers aren’t really that orange in real life, but I used my artist’s license, as I did in doing all of these hummingbird paintings.






The Broad-billed Hummingbird to me is one of the most colorful hummingbirds with it's iridescent greens and blues on his body. They also have an orange bill. Most other hummers have a dark bills. He is going to a tubular flower that hummers prefer because they hold more nectar than many other flowers.

The Rufous is noisy for a hummingbird and you can hear them at your feeders. They also like feeding from nasturtium flowers.

How do you make hummingbird food and feed them in your own yard?







The Bahama Woodstar Hummingbird is a rare visitor to south Florida. I have painted the female here with her cinnamon colored underside that go great with an orange colored hibiscus flower.

Bahama Woodstar Hummingbird and Hibiscus are great subjects for hummingbird paintings.

This is a beautiful watercolor paintings. It is one of those paintings that turned out absolutely perfect. It shows forth one of God's little jewels. We are bright and shining jewels in God's eyes when we accept Jesus Christ into our hearts. God has put so much beauty here on this earth for us to enjoy. These birds with their jewel-like colors are one of the wonderful gifts God has given us.

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