Monday, September 15, 2008

Loon


This was done from a photograph that hangs in my parents' den. It's been around for many years, and for just as many years I have wanted to paint it. There was some anxiety attached to that longing, it was such a beautiful photo takn by my dad on one of his fishing trips. I'd hate to mess it up. But I finally did draw it back in June when I was there. I studied the photo several times a day, and made mental notes. When I finally drew it, I also made paper notes. Then I went home and painted it. I used liquid mask (lots of it) on those tiny polka dots. The challenges were to get a dark enough color, to recreate the interesting green water, and to blur out the male and the chick. This last proved the most difficult, as the male loon always looked as if he was rearing out of the water like a breaching whale. At that point I thought it was ruined, so I decided to continue experimenting wih the color of the water. I added a second, deeper wash of color right over the background birds. And suddenly, it worked. That loon settled right down, and the colors blurred enough to look like the photo. So I decided I liked it. And even better, my co-workers chose it to hang in our library gallery.
Watercolor in Moleskine sketchbook, 5"x7"

6 comments:

Margaret Ann said...

You did a beautiful job on this...the water looks amazing! :) WooHOo! :)

Sandy said...

Fantastic, and what a wonderful memento added to your journal, such sweet memories! You learned lessons, and experimented with techniques and stuck with it and came up with a winner in all respects. Congratulations!

David said...

Really nice! I recently got back from a vacation in Maine and there were a couple of loons on the lake that we stayed on. Of course everytime I took the canoe out on the water my wife would point at me and say, "Hey look at the loon." She's funny like that...or so she thinks.

kazumiwannabe said...

This is beautiful! The colors are great, they work wonderfully together - you did a great job!

Heidi Grether said...

I just started painting/drawing about a year ago. Am 52! Hadn't done any painting since high school. Loving it. Discovered your blog bc I have an assignment from my Drawing One class to draw a staircase! Hmmmm, seems very difficult.

My art blog is www.hattigracesart.blogspot.com

Timaree said...

Well good for you and for your coworkers. It's great they support your work by hanging it in their library. I guess there is something to be said about keeping on going.