Farm Geese, Toulouse Geese, Art tip # 11

" Going Places "

Day 3

Oil

Before I comment on the progress of this oil I wanted to mention that my new web site is launched! I hope you'll take a few minutes to visit and please sign up for my monthly email newsletter if you like. If you are an artist considering your own web site I highly recommend Fine Art Studios Online. I can now keep my web site updated easily myself! You can test drive your own site during a free trial period. Let me know what you think!

Now, this painting. Seven geese down and two to go. Once all the geese are blocked in and the grassy foreground is completed I will go over the geese again, softening some to keep the main focus on the Toulouse, gray goose, you see here, maybe some glazing and scumbling to unify the overall lights and darks. In the lower right corner of the photo you can see one of my Canada Geese giclee in the print bin. In the past a majority of my subjects were birds, zebras and fish. I really wanted to be doing still life, too, but no time. Now I do mostly still life and long to do birds again. These farm geese will be a start!

Art tip # 11: When I know I won't be able to complete a painting in one day, at the end of the painting session, I soften any hard edges on areas that still need work. To do this I take a blending type brush or actually any old bristle brush will do. Lightly and quickly roughin up the edges. You can always create hard edges again, but it isn't easy to cover up a hard edge that has dried (I use Liquin, a medium that speeds the drying of oils). If you click on the painting you can see where I roughed up the edges of the gray goose. I can tighten things up again later.