This painting sat for a long time unfinished. I had become quite frustrated with the pattern of the feathers and so put it away for probably over a year. This is not unusual for me actually. There are a number of other paintings that sat for a long time unfinished. What is interesting to me about this painting though is not the birds but the little puddle of water. I was unsure of what to do with the foreground. I knew I wanted low grassy-type plants but then figured there needed to be a bit more interest. So I started to paint the soil, put in a few little rocks and sticks. I hunched over and worked very close to the canvas and just painted without thinking very much, putting shadows and highlights where they seemed they needed to be. It was not until I took a photo of the painting and looked at it on the computer that I saw that what I had actually had painted was a puddle.  The puddle adds so much to the feeling of the environment – it made the painting more interesting I think. Another great example of my mantra “don’t think, just paint.”

18 Feb This entry was published on February 18, 2012 at 3:26 pm. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged bird, grouse, highlights, paint, painting, shadows, unfinished. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.