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.

O Canada

© Ellen Blonder

A fun thing about going through and cleaning out old stuff is revisiting art that used to make you think you were hot stuff. This is from fifth grade, age 9 or 10, when I had just discovered how to make letters three-dimensional and shade just the edges of the land masses, much more sophisticated than coloring in all the water.

Tools

I've been taking a break from painting while doing some much-needed organizing and cleaning up. What's always fun about that chore is discovering things you didn't know or remember you had. Many of the tools here came from my family's farm, and were thrown into boxes when my parents moved years ago. I don't even know how some of these tools function, but I love their beautiful shapes and the workmanship involved in designing and manufacturing them.

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. 

Father's Day Foodie Break

© Ellen Blonder

Foodie break for Father's Day to make Nick's favorite semolina cake, also with almond meal, orange, and layers of marzipan and apricot jam under the chocolate icing. Let me know if you want the recipe. 

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. 

Egrets, Day 6

© Ellen Blonder

Today was about adding details to the cycad trunks and darkening the background.

Egrets, Day 5

© Ellen Blonder

At the end of a day painting leaves, I wanted to give a trunk some dimension. There's no way to paint this without simplifying drastically. The birds have to be painted later; they're going to look rough for a while.

Egrets, Day 4

© Ellen Blonder

Filling in leaves... This is going to take a while.