A smaller painting from our Iceland trip a few years ago. We saw many such vistas as this and some of the landscape was really un-worldly! Love to take an extended trip there and spend more time painting the incredible landscape - such beauty wherever you looked. This oil on canvas is 8 x 10 inches.
Quite some time ago, I painted a male peacock trying not to make a hash of the intricate plumage. This time, I started this smaller study of a female which, thankfully has a more simple plumage. For the painting, I concentrated mostly on the head trying to capture the details around the eye and just suggested the rest of its plumage. I have been putting off doing another painting of the male for some time but perhaps finishing this female will inspire me to finally make a start on that one. Size is around 7 x 8 inches (18 x 20 cm), watercolor on Grumbacher paper.
Walking the Eastern Shore beaches as I have done so many times in the past, one often comes across Sanderlings. Usually only a single bird at a time but occasionally (especially on migration) up to 15 or so. I love watching them 'chasing the waves' as someone so adeptly put it with their running after a receding wave, feeding frantically then running up the beach again ahead of the next incoming one. Many are so used to people walking by that they simply wait until you have passed then go back to feeding again. Occasionally they will fly a little ahead of you and this is what I wanted to capture in my painting. Their strongly patterned wings flicker and capture the eye, usually they are angled downwards and the short flight ends with a quick run on jet black legs.
When I first started working on this small painting, I had in my mind a rather simple composition with almost flat-like colors. After laying in basic areas of mostly blue and warm gray, everything looked too simplistic so I began overpainting lighter tones then added more definition to the mountainside. Every time I looked at the painting, I saw something else that needed work. What started out as being something that I wanted to finish in a short time extended to a painting spread over two weeks. Not that I was working on it all that time but it just goes to show, sometimes one has to follow the dictates of the painting and take it to its natural conclusion irrespective of ones initial idea. Size is 7 x 5 inches (18 x 13 cm), acrylic on board.
Before working on this smaller oil, I had hiked and explored this area quite extensively. Ospreys nest here as do Bald Eagles plus there are the usual assortment of other marsh birds making it an exciting experience every time I visit. I prefer to go there in winter although by then, the ospreys and a lot of other breeding birds are gone. Still, there is always plenty to see and I find new things to paint each time. This is one of a few different studies I have done around there and I am hoping all this work will lead to a larger oil sometime soon. Size is 8 x 10 inches (20 x 25 cm), oil on canvas.
I finally finished an adult bald eagle study! Beforehand, it had been only the young eagles that had interested me, mainly because of their more interesting plumage and their darker bills. But I intend to do a color study of and adult sometime so wanted to feel my way forward with a drawing first. I decided the only way to do an effective portrait in this case was to darken the background and set the white of the head against that - so that is what I did here. When I got the darker tones sorted, I started with the bird's eye then moved to the bill then started to modulate the long pale head feathers. Working downwards, I laid in many layers of graphite until I arrived at the result you see here. Size is 12 x 9 inches.
While mixing up some paint the other day, I realized that I had too much so wondered what to do with the left over. There was a small canvas panel nearby so I began spreading on the blue adding some white as I went trying to get a graduated sky. The resultant shape suggested a mountain top so I added almost pure titanium white for the snow and started adding in a little burnt umber for the rocks. The shadow followed and the painting progressed from there. Since I had started the work with my palette knife, I decided to do the whole painting using only that instead of brushes as I normally do. I only used two colors and the darker grey is a mix of mostly burnt umber with a little pure cobalt blue added in. This is the first palette knife painting that I have done and for me, was a enjoyable experience. I did learn a lot from doing this one that I'm sure I will be able to use on my next mountain scene. Size is 7 x 5 inches.
