Watching from the Sidelines

I have held off on posting this painting. It was originally done at the request of someone that had purchased one of my other paintings. He wanted a painting of wood ducks and gave me a couple of rather bad reference photos. Basically told me just wanted it landscape and would leave the rest to my artistic style. Long story short, when I showed him the final result, he picked at it. “I wanted them in the water (uhm, they are) and further away from the edge. Uhmmm, I like them there and what happened to artist choice?

At any rate, lesson learned. No more commissions. Not worth it. I still like the painting and it deserves to be seen.

So I present “Watching From the Sidelines”

Reflection

A local photographer (Michael Hellen) posted a picture of a heron he took. I asked for permission to paint it and he gave it to me. The following is the progression of the painting as I work on it including Michael’s original photograph.

I was able to get a lot more work done on the painting. I need to wait for it to dry before I can go in and work on it some more, but I am thinking that it may just be a matter of some fine detail work. Maybe a bit of glazing in some areas as well.

This is the painting at this stage. I still have more work to do on it.

This is the base painting for the lights and shadows and placement.
And this is Michael’s photograph