Touch Up Time: new paint on old decoys

With each new season, my decoys get a fresh touch of color. It’s good housekeeping to eliminate the chips and scratches, and satisfying to transform run-of-the-mill clones into better replicas of real birds. Customizing to match seasonal variations in plumage draws me deeper into the craft—that place in this sport where art, science, and the pursuit of wild things all converge.

Acrylics are a cheap and easy way to experiment with colors. Your nearest craft store will have an overwhelming selection to choose from.

Craft paper provides a disposable canvas for fine-tuning custom colors and for getting enough paint off the bristles to dry-brush the highlights.

These old Carrylite mallard hens were destined for the trash, until they were transformed into lesser scaup drakes (based on Sanford’s bluebill tutorial). Good enough to serve as the first few attention-getters on the long lines.

View from above. I think they’ll pass muster.

For more painting tutorials, my favorite resource on this subject is Steven J. Sanford’s website—check out his instructions for puddle ducks and divers, complete with Home Depot paint-color names and brushwork techniques: https://stevenjaysanford.com.