Daily Painting, "Morning Visitor"

"Morning Visitor"
12X9
Oil on Raymar Linen Panel

Click on picture to enlarge it

Sometimes I notice silly things, mostly because when I am studying a subject or a compostion I am looking at it for patterns and balance. When I finished this today I noticed how the dogwood blossoms and the two limbs up on the right of the main trunk of the tree are making themselves seem like quotation marks. Also, I think the little stems with the dogwood blossom buds remind me of musical notes. If a painting were a song, I think this one would sing. Except woodpeckers don't really sing. They are more like the percussion section in the orchestra. TaTaTatat.

Well, I like him. I hope you do!! Have a happy weekend!

Daily Painting, "Morning Visitor" In Progress

"Morning Visitor"
12X9
Oil on Raymar Linen Panel
In Progress

Click on picture to enlarge

More progress last evening, but I still have some fine tuning to do and the right side is not finished. One thing I am concerned about here is whether the entire picture is too busy. However, this is the woods and animals tend to be in the camouflage mode. Plus, if I am seeking some sense of realism here, the scene actually looks like this with all of the twigs and leafy background. I thought about making this painting more of a sketch by just painting the woodpecker and tree in detail and then scrubbing the rest out to a faint blur. The main thing is that I don't want this to be a scientific illustration, but rather capture the awesome surprise I feel when I am so privileged to have such a beautiful creature grace my yard, share our space, and give us such a visual joy. I am hoping to finish him up today.

Daily Painting, "Morning Visitor" In Progress

"Morning Visitor"
12X9
Oil on Raymar Linen Panel
In Progress

Not too far from our kitchen window is a dogwood tree where we have a bird feeder hanging. My husband loves to feed the birds and they must be very grateful and happy because we have lots of them coming to the feeders. We also have a woodpecker family. The other morning, as I was reading the paper and having my coffee, I looked out of that window and there was this silly woodpecker enjoying his breakfast, too. He is too big for the feeder really, so when he gets on there he sits on one perch but then stretches up to the feeder port, two ports up from the one by the perch. And then he flits up to the dogwood limbs and eats away at his prize, a black oiled sunflower seed. He was so beautiful on this gray winter morning that I raced to the studio to get my camera, ran back to the kitchen window to see if I could capture him against the woodsy backdrop that is our yard. Lucky for me he stayed around quite a while and this is the shot I got of him which I am now happy to be painting!!!

This is just the beginning of the painting from the amount of time I had to paint this morning....stay tuned to see the finished one!!