Saturday, July 22, 2017

Wood duck Reborn

Wood Duck Reflections from Nov. 2016
Some months ago, in November to be exact, I painted a small piece featuring a male wood duck. I had done it for two reasons. First, I needed a piece for my show and second, I needed a piece featuring a duck as part of my portfolio. I kind of whipped it out in a hurry, threw it on the pile and moved on to the next piece, but I was never really satisfied with it. It was okay, but not my best work and it seemed to lack punch. Now, months later, it surfaced again as I was beginning to start the process of framing these thirty pieces for the October show. Looking at it again made me cringe. So.....having a little time on my hands (not really!) between framing, painting and now processing an abundance of veggies from the garden I decided to rework it. I figured since it was on it's way to the "not likely to make it to the show" group if I ruined it by reworking where was the loss? I was actually being uncharacteristically brave in this regard. Usually I fret over ruining a piece entirely, but some of the good things that have come from having to paint constantly is that you start to gain a little confidence in your abilities and your medium.
I decided that what I disliked the most was that the water color was too close in value to the duck and had intended on just making it a lighter shade of blue. Then I thought, why copy my photo reference literally? An idea dawned, one thing lead to another and I found myself masking out the duck and slapping some warm shades of Naples yellow, dioxizine purple, magenta and cadmium orange across the board. Wow! Without adding anything else the painting completely gained some life. Still, it needed more.
Painting in process with frisket film overlay
 Now I got a little nervous. Things were going pretty well and I didn't want to have to repaint those gorgeous sunset colors, but I knew I wanted to add some dark reflections of vegetation to the top of the painting as well as some reeds or grasses around the duck. To see if this would work I took a piece of clear airbrush frisket film, laid it over the painting and proceeded to experiment with colors and shapes. I used this same procedure in the painting I did last year of the kestrel. When I was satisfied, I removed the film and proceeded to add the reflections and vegetation. Finally, I tweaked the highlights and darks on the wood duck itself.
Evening Reflections-Wood duck- 8 x10" acrylic

Here is the final piece now. I think it has much more life and it will definitely be going to the show in October!