Bird Decor

The species brings its colors along

A stylized bird can be printed in whatever shades a designer decides on, which means you have no idea what will turn up until it does. A painted mallard has a green head, a chestnut breast and gray flanks because that is what a mallard is. Anyone who has seen the bird already knows most of what the finished piece looks like, and that removes the largest unknown in buying artwork you have only seen on a screen.

• Waterfowl run muted. Mallard, canvasback and swan hold to greens, browns, gray and white, so they settle into rooms that already have plenty happening.
• Songbirds deliver one accent. A cardinal is red against neutral and a goldfinch is yellow against neutral, which is a single decisive color rather than a scheme.
• Display birds saturate. Peacock and flamingo set the color of a corner instead of accenting it.
• Doves and pigeons stay quiet. Soft grays and whites, for when you want the shape of a bird and none of the volume.

People buy a bird for opposite reasons

Part of the audience is furnishing a room and part of it is buying the bird itself. Somebody who keeps a feeder, hunts waterfowl in the fall or walks the same marsh every weekend wants the plumage right and will spot it if the wing bar is wrong. Somebody putting a sunroom together wants a certain amount of pink and green in a certain proportion and could not name the species if asked. The same artwork can serve either buyer, but each should shop differently.

• If you know the bird, buy the study. The waterfowl and raptor artwork holds up to a second look from a person who recognizes it.
• If you want the color, start at the loud end. Work from flamingo and peacock and judge the background rather than the beak.
• A gift is nearly always the species. Naming the exact bird somebody follows is a far more specific present than any general bird design.

Wingspan decides the format

Whether a species suits a cushion or a mat follows the shape of the bird rather than anything arbitrary. A small songbird fills a square comfortably and looks marooned across a yard of floor. A swan, an eagle or a fanned peacock has the width to hold a rectangle and looks cramped in anything smaller.

• Compact birds want squares. Goldfinch, dove, pigeon and canvasback are cushion subjects and stay legible at that scale.
• Wide birds want the floor. A 24x36 mat gives a swan or an eagle enough room to open out.
• The smaller mat crops closer. A fanned peacock at 18x27 is a tighter view of the same bird, with less of the setting around it.

Why a bird outlasts most artwork

Species portraits sit outside the cycle that dates a slogan or a geometric so quickly. A cardinal on snow reads as winter to some households and simply as a cardinal to others, and neither reading goes stale. It also survives a change of sofa, because the color came from the animal rather than from whatever palette was current when it was drawn.

• It is not a seasonal piece. Unlike a snowflake or a pumpkin, a bird stays up in March without looking left over.
• It tolerates a redecoration. Natural plumage is easier to build a new scheme around than a designed color pair.
• Where the surface rules live. How a subject behaves on a filled square is on the printed pillow page. Color that survives a busy doorway is the subject of the printed door mat page.