Cawcus~Developing composition

3.)More size adjustments, more birds, more 'attitude'. I think this will be the final composition. I can individualize each bird more as I paint them.

2.)Here I've adjusted the sizes of a few birds, corrected the feet and played with attitude(posturing).

1.) I tightened the grouping so the birds relate more to one another.

I seem to be slow out of the starting gate this year artwise. Looking back over previous years I see this is a pattern for me. Maybe I tend to be more thoughtful and not as impulse and consequently less productive in midwinter. In the meantime, I've been staring at my storyboard and knew something was 'off'. I just couldn't put my finger on it so I decided to let things marinate for awhile.

I was watching the finale of The Housewives of Beverly Hills a few nights ago(inspiration can come from the darnest places) and the episode ended in a huge explosion of verbal dynamite. This particular group altercation took place at a large gathering, a birthday party actually. Long story short, it was interesting to observe how various individuals reacted to the con-flab. It gave me some added inspiration to apply to my composition. I've added more birds, grouped them more tightly and adjusted their sizes and attitudes. I decided I wasn't concerned about realistic size relationship(perspective), leaving larger birds behind smaller birds. I've also experimented, painting with a different medium...Speedball ink. DS Iridescent Electric blue watercolor paint applied over black Speedball ink makes a pretty convincing crow. Who knew?

Berries & Birch~photo

Because of the odd weather last summer there were no ash berries. This year the mountain ash that flanks the birch trees across my drive is loaded with berries and I snapped this shot which I wanted to share. I love the colors of the berries and mountain ash leaves, the white flash of the birch bark and the Fall colors of the birch leaves. The color combination is amazing and looks bright, even on a rainy day. This may be inspiration for a future painting or just give me ideas for color combinations.