Cycad Painting - Final

© Ellen Blonder

I think this is done. I added some red leaves behind the bromeliad, darkened, then lightened the sky a bit, spending hours touching it up behind the cycad and refining the cycad leaves afterward. I've also darkened the underside and beard of the goat, added contrast in the horns and fixed its face so those weird far-apart eyes read better. 

In retrospect, this was a crazy way to paint, without even a foggy idea of where I was headed, finishing out the key elements and then having to paint around them. What's funny is that in the end, it doesn't look so different from my other paintings that are more planned ahead. I don't know how others manage to have a layout all planned out ahead. I needed time out to let this sit between painting sessions so I could figure out what else it required.

Cycad Painting 8

© Ellen Blonder

This is both the fun and tedious part, adding details with the finest brushes. There are now additional goats in the background, and patterns on the bromeliad leaves. I've also added strappy leaves behind and under the bromeliad and blades of grass in the foreground. The goat still feels a bit pasted in, though. While he looked very dark against the beige background when I first painted him, he now looks too flatly white against the dark path.

Cycad Painting 7

© Ellen Blonder

Here's the bromeliad shaping up. 

© Ellen Blonder

And here it is with the colorful flower bracts. It needed something on the right for balance, so I've added some fan palm leaves.

Cycad Painting 6

© Ellen Blonder

I've got to add some color. I can't let this just be a goat by himself in green grass. There's a bromeliad I've been wanting to paint, and I now have it sketched into the lower left corner. I'll decide what else to add after I work on that.

Cycad Painting 5

© Ellen Blonder

This is a backward way to paint, using a size 0 brush to add background behind the finished cycad fronds and around the goat's fur. It feels like it's going to take forever, but at least I can feel space in the picture now. 

Cycad Painting 4

© Ellen Blonder

I should know my own tendencies better than I do. As soon as I washed in some background, the painting feels anchored. I'm still not sure where this is headed, but giving the elements some solid ground suddenly makes this feel better.

Cycad Painting 3

©Ellen Blonder

I've been letting this marinate, not sure how to proceed, but the cycad looked lost alone on the canvas. I decided to add a goat, based on my photo of this character I saw near Kilauea, Kauai. He was not wild, but in a grassy area behind a fence. Did he know how magnificent he looked, so different from the other goats in the same pasture? The way he posed, I suspect he did.

Of course, I still don't know where this painting is headed. Do I add an egret above? Add some torn sketchbook pages to make a collage?

Cycad Painting 2

© Ellen Blonder

Cycads intrigue me, with their primitiveness, as if a dinosaur could appear behind it at any moment. My reference for this was a handsome specimen from the Mcbride Garden in Kauai.

I didn't photograph this in progress, but here's the pretty finished painting of it against the prepared background. I have an idea to surround it with other bits of Hawaiian flora and fauna, so it looks like a big page torn out of a sketchbook, without more of a background than this.

Cycad Painting - Beginning

 I inherited this 40 x 50-inch canvas from my mother-in-law, and while the painting was in bad shape, it was on heavy linen, mounted on a sturdy frame, something worth saving. When the paint began peeling off, I thought I'd try stripping it.

Much of the paint peeled off in strips, but the rest had to be scraped with a palette knife.

The rest of the paint was stuck fast, so I could only cover it with gesso. I thought I could make the underlying texture work for me, although I had no idea what I was going to paint.

Cycad Painting - Beginning

 I inherited this 40 x 50-inch canvas from my mother-in-law, and while the painting was in bad shape, it was on heavy linen, mounted on a sturdy frame. When the paint began peeling off, I thought I'd try stripping it.

Much of the paint peeled off in strips, but the rest had to be scraped with a palette knife.

The rest of the paint was stuck fast, so I could only cover it with gesso. I thought I could make the underlying texture work for me, although I had no idea what I was going to paint.

Egrets - Final

© Ellen Blonder

The last time I posted progress on this painting, I felt completely stuck. I took a month off to clean the basement and host house guests. Afterward, I finally could face that the sky needed darkening, as did all three cycads in the background. I also redid the foliage to the left near the smaller egret. This finally feels finished.

Egrets, after Three Weeks' Work

© Ellen Blonder

Changes are harder to see now. I did add a plant to the lower left corner, and spent a lot of time refining the big plant in the middle in front of the birds. 

Egrets, Days 16 and 17

© Ellen Blonder

The last couple of days have been slow, gradually shading the feathers on the egret on the right. Once it was done, I decided to refine the branch coming in from the right. Next I'll add light and shadow to it. The lower left corner remains unresolved.

Egrets, Days 14 and 15

© Ellen Blonder

Progress feels slow as I paint in the grass and add details to the foreground plants. As I do, I also need to adjust the whites in the egret feathers. I'm not sure yet what to add to the lower left corner, if anything.

Egrets, Day 13

© Ellen Blonder

Try as I might, I never seem to be able to lay something out in final form from the start. I thought I'd be putting two egrets in a grassy field, but it looked flat and boring. Today, I started "planting" a garden for them instead.

Egrets, Day 12

© Ellen Blonder

I had originally intended to put the egrets in a grassy field, but I can't seem to help myself adding other plants. I'm just getting started.

Egrets, Day 11

© Ellen Blonder

After a week and a half of houseguests, I'm finally painting again, mostly refining the shading on feathers and darkening legs and grass.

Egrets, Days 9 and 10

© Ellen Blonder

Big changes. I read an article recently about a relaxed brain being necessary to making intuitive decisions, so I went for a walk to try to figure out what was bothering me about this painting. I realized the egrets were too much the same scale, making the whole painting feel flat. I redrew the one on the left, and moved it away from the foreground. I'm still not sure if this is going to work, but it feels better.

Egrets, Day 8

© Ellen Blonder

More work on the leaves today. 

Egrets, Day 7

© Ellen Blonder

Slowly filling in leaf details.