Cecropia - WIP 4

I've finally gotten a chance to work more on the moth.  We've had tons of tomatoes to put up and after peeling one only to have it try to slip from my hand, I twisted my back trying to catch it.  It just wasn't comfortable to paint or really do much of anything.  I did make a large batch of tomato soup yesterday though.

Lest you think I'm joking or exaggerating the amount of tomatoes we're getting right now, I'll show you a photo of the harvest from the past two days!  And remember, I used a dozen or more in the soup I put into the freezer!

 Maybe now you can understand why I'm not too keen on the harvest when I have paintings in the works!  It takes forever to freeze any and the soup yesterday took most of the day to fix.

 But, I'm feeling good and in the mood to paint so the tomatoes will either just have to wait or my husband can take them to the food bank or something.  There are more coming in all the time anyway.

The Cecropia moth is coming along and looking much as I'd hoped it would.  Even though I'm never totally satisfied with my work, I'm relatively pleased with this one so far.  The bottom wings still need some work and the viewer's left wing isn't finished but I feel as if I've gotten quite a bit accomplished today.  After the moth is totally finished, I'll revisit the background.

So that's the update for now.  Hopefully more tomorrow!

Narcissus Flowers in Water Soluble Oil

Although I haven't done any more to it, there was some paint leftover from the Red Angus cow that I wanted to use but didn't want to paint anymore on the cow.  Did you get that?  lol  In short, I was bored with the bull but didn't want to waste paint!

I had a photo of these narcissus so decide to see if I could paint them.  This is still the water soluble oil paint but on a 6 x 6 inch canvas panel.  It came out a little better than the cow, or at least I thought so.  Maybe I should just stick to painting flowers in the oils or maybe I should just practice painting animals!

Finally Back Painting

It's been something of a long haul getting back to painting and I'm not feeling too successful with the comeback!  I have all these ideas floating around in my head but it's as if I'm learning to paint all over again when I try to get them down on paper or canvas.

I saw this photograph at a public domain photo site and immediately wanted to paint this big girl (well, I think it's a cow and not a bull but I really don't know!)  It's on a 12x12 inch square gallery wrapped canvas and I'm using the water soluble oils as I got some new brushes that I wanted to try.

The brushes are great but the person trying to use them is more than a little rusty!  After much time, work and a few less than nice words, I just got it out of the really ugly stage to this "it's getting there" ugly stage!  I know I'm on the verge of finishing it but I'm already tired of working on it!  I know the number one problem with artists is they tend to quit too soon.  I know I need to push on with this and get those lovely twirls of winter fur tamed and she really, really needs some eyelashes!

OK, someone give me that kick in the tail that I sorely need and make me finish this!  Or, is it so bad that I need to scrape it all off and paint something else?  So many of my recent paintings have ended up in the circular file - it would be so nice to paint something that works!