Monday, February 25, 2008

Apples and Raven

Apples and Raven painted in oil. The painting took a few days longer than I had planed but it is finished. Sometimes after I look at a painting for a while I make small changes, but right now I like it.


Apples and Raven 24x20x1 1/2
The painting is finish
More Detail




Thursday, February 21, 2008

Still working on this painting

This painting is coming along one brush stroke at a time. I still have a lot of detail and finish work to do here.

I thought I would be done with this painting by now but I still have a few more days work here.



Tuesday, February 19, 2008

A painting in the making


I have started a new painting in my Raven Series. This one is larger then other other paintings. I was testing the idea on the smaller works. This painting is 24x20x1 1/2. I began it about two weeks ago.
Ravens have high intelligence and are perhaps the smartest birds. There is also a lot of mythology about the Corvus so it is an interesting bird to work with and play with diferent ideas on canvas.

A little look into my studio as I work out the details of the painting. I often start with one idea but change it while I am working on it. I sketched out a few ideas and started from there working out things that didn't seem to flow in the painting.



I put my paint on my palette with foil over it because it make clean up a lot easier for me.






This is where I have stopped working for today. I will post more tomorrow as I start to finish the painting.

For centuries the corvids, ravens and crows in particular (corvus corax is the Latin name for the common raven and corvus corone for the carrion and hooded crows), have had a special place in the mythology of various cultures. In modern times this fascination has barely diminished. From Edgar Allen Poe's literary classic to the film of James O'Barr's cult graphic novel "The Crow", these birds still exert a powerful hold over the psyche of a significant fraction of the population. The Goths who paint their faces with white make-up and the weekend warriors who expect Raven to take them to the Otherworld to meet the dead do not see the same animal as the farmers who set up decoys in order to shoot large numbers of them every year in late spring. This is, however, typical of a creature that presents a paradox wherever one looks