Lilies-Day 1

© Ellen Blonder

Orange lilies grow wild along the roadsides in Kauai, but I've resisted painting them because of their complicated shape. Time to see what I can do. This is a 12 x 24-inch canvas board. I'm using a grid technique to help me get the flowers lined up properly in the underlying drawing.

Goat-Final

© Ellen Blonder

With some cleaning up and added lights and darks, this goat painting is done. 

Goat-Day 12

© Ellen Blonder

Just about finished. I'll touch up the sky and add a little detail to the foliage, but this feels pretty done.

Goat-Day 11

© Ellen Blonder

Shading in the spider lily leaves, then adding background foliage took up most of the day today. It ended up more stylized than realistic, but I like the flow of it.

Goat-Day 10

© Ellen Blonder

I've wanted to put Brazilian cardinals into a painting for a long time. I always love seeing and hearing them in Kauai. I also worked on the seed pods of the spider lily on the lower left of the painting.

Goat-Day 9

© Ellen Blonder

I filled in the foreground palm today. The goat I saw was actually munching on palm fronds much larger and less tender-looking than these.

Goat-Day 8

© Ellen Blonder

Today was all about painting bamboo, and here's a slightly cropped view of it.

Goat-Day 7

© Ellen Blonder

I'm starting in on foliage details on the right, pushing myself to go darker than I tend to do.

Goat-Day 6

© Ellen Blonder

I spent part of today shading the goat's impressive horns. He was the only one in the herd with such a pair. 

Goat-Day 5

© Ellen Blonder

Painting a white goat is so tricky. All day I've been pushing the darker tones. I'll have to revisit the fur once some of the plants are painted in. This is a slightly cropped view.

Goat-Day 4

© Ellen Blonder

Working on the goat's face, and it's hard to keep those eyes that far apart. Makes me wonder what they see.

Goat-Day 3

© Ellen Blonder

This looks very rough still, but laying in the dark values will help me keep the goat from being too light overall. I'm adding a pair of Brazilian cardinals to the foreground, among my favorite birds on the island.

Goat-Day 2

 © Ellen Blonder

Instead of my usual procedure of painting in the featured animal, I need to work out the values all around the almost-all white goat.

Goat-Day 1

© Ellen Blonder

The goat that I painted in the large Kauai painting (see March 16, 2011 post) deserved to be painted again in greater detail. Here he is on a 20 x 20-inch canvas.