Here We Go Again

I worked on the second in the series of paintings I'm doing of the birds on our deck, mostly the jays in their crazy jumping, flying, frenzy for peanuts. They amuse me and I'm working on creating a series of amusing paintings of them. This one has lots to do yet. Today I started to paint and now I am in the longest phase of a painting, the middle part. The beginning is composing and finding the passages of light and dark, putting paint on all parts of the canvas, showing where things are alike. It is not usually a long process. Next comes the middle which can last a very long time. It is getting the paint on, showing where things are different, finalizing the composition, adding variation to the lights and darks. The end is for flourishes, final details, adding the "wow factor" and completing the painting. Here I have quite a bit to do yet. I'll be posting as I go and you will see what I mean.

As you might guess, today was open studio. It was a special one where we brought food for a pot luck and wrapped a painting we liked in plain paper to give to one of the other painters in the group. Mine went to my friend Cathy. I was glad because for the last three years I've gotten hers. Trish puts a number on each painting and you draw from a hat. I got hers three years in a row. This year I got Nancy's painting. She's new to the group and I was glad to get a piece of her work. 

Helena came over for dinner and TV as she usually does on Wednesday and that was lovely.