Amazonian Gem!

And there's your American Purple Gallinule...in my opinion, a serious contender for best in show!  The colors, the regal look.  What a joy to find this bird in the Ecuadorian Amazon.  Sweet.

Not sure what's next...I  head to Yosemite in another week...maybe a landscape.  See you in a couple of weeks.  Mark

Background just about complete

Tomorrow I'll finish the background and begin the Gallinule.  Back in a week or so with a finished painting!

American Purple Gallinule

Who knows what an American Purple Gallinule is?  Wait for it....a bird.  So yes, yet one more bird painting is underway.  From Elke's and my travels to Ecuador this summer we returned with some pictures of a pretty cool bird we saw up close in the Ecuadorean Amazon.  The APG is a bird that is found in southeast United States and as far south as Central and South America.  Neither of us had ever seen this bird before.  And what a great bird it is.  About the size of a chicken, the APG is found in swamps, ponds, and lagoons.  It's feet and legs oversized for its body and are perfect for standing on large lily pads and water vegetation.  Its feathers are a beautiful blue, green, aqua blend.  And its beak, well, its a big candy corn of striped white, orange, and yellow.
Today I layed out the painting, and blocked in the initial background colors.  I'll return in a few days with the background hopefully pretty much intact. 
Mark

Canal Complete

Venice canal is finished.  The Aquabord surface worked well - I'm going to continue using for future work.  The painting size is 24 x 18.  I'm not sure what is next - possibly a bird I photographed in Ecuador last month...stay tuned.  Happy late summer! 

Venice

Back from vacation and on to a new creation.  This next painting is a canal photo from a trip to Venice.  I like the earth tones - the tans, grays, greens.  And once again I'm going to use Aquabord as my surface.  I enjoyed painting on this when I did the mallard, and now I am eager to see how this will look framed.  As a reminder, upon completion of painting on the Aquabord surface, I spray a sealant over the painting and it becomes permanent.  No need from matting and glass.

Stay tuned - I'll be back shortly with an update.  Happy Summer!
Mark

Duck is done....moving on.

The mallard duck painting is complete.  You'll find the result below, and in my previous blog a few photos of the painting as it progressed.  You'll note that I dramatically changed the background.  I'm going to to go ahead and enter this painting in the Federal Duck Stamp competition.  When I began the painting I wasn't sure if this was going to be practice or a possible entry.  It's an entry...I'm a bit tired of ducks right now.

This was a great project though, for a couple of reasons.  One this is the smallest painting I've ever done 7" X 10", the mandatory size for the federal competition.  And two, this is the first painting I've done on masonite board.  It was a different experience from painting on watercolor board, but I liked it a lot, so I'm likely to continue with this surface.

Well, I'm not sure what's up next for my paint by numbers...stay tuned and I'll soon have an answer...

Thanks for checking in,

Mark

Back in the saddle

The damaged duck stamp painting is safely behind me...I'm good to go!  So, for the past few weeks I've been doing some experimenting.  For awhile I've been curious about painting with acrylics, and recently I've come across some new (to me) surfaces for my watercolor painting.  So that's what Ive been up to.  I spent some time working in acrylics, and decided for now that that's not my strength.  Do what I do best, so keep with the watercolors.  I did though find a new panel to paint on.  All my previous watercolor painting has been done on watercolor board.  Like cardboard, but nicer.  Well I found a masonite board specifically coated to accept watercolor paint.  Very interesting stuff.  This panel has its pluses and minuses as compared to what I've painted on previously so I decided I need to do a complete painting to see how it goes.

Since it was recommended to me that I should display the different stages of one of my paintings that is what you will find in this blog entry.  The subject matter is yet another duck.  Just so happens the Federal Duck stamp competition is slated for August, and one of the qualifying species is the mallard.  With that in mind I did some photography a few months ago for duck subjects as well as background material.  The duck for this painting is actually a photo of a mallard that Elke took on a vacation from last year.  I am not intending for this painting to be an entry (I have questions about the composition), but more as practice and experimentation with the new masonite panel, and the size of the painting.  The dimensions for the Federal competition are fixed at 7 inches by 10 inches.  Remember, the winning entry has to be reduced down to the size of a duck stamp, so paintings can't be 18x24 - a typical size for my art.

A few days ago I started this painting:

I start by projecting the images on my panel.  I do not freehand the drawing, because I can't afford to make erasures.  When you erase you scuff the board or panel which changes the way it absorbs and blends.

I then block in some background colors, and begin fine-tuning.  When I start painting details I generally begin with whatever is in the rear, meaning if something is going to be overlapped it has to be painted first.  In this case as in most the top of the painting goes first.  I went ahead and did some work on the ducks head, because nothing is in front of it, and I like to look at it while working around it.  The body will be the very last, since it sits on top of all the background.

I said I would paint the body last - oops, I fibbed.  Well, I was painting the rocks and the bank and I got restless.  So, since not much is in the way of the body I went ahead yesterday and started in.  I'm going to finish the body then go back and finish the rocks he is standing on then finish with the grass on the left.

 

I'll be back in a few days to update.

Cheers,
Mark