Ellen Easton
Was Ellen E. on Wet Canvas
- Messages
- 142
This painting was one I did for my son's birthday. He had captured a picture of our resident cougar in his yard on his trail cam in the wee hours of Easter Sunday and then my youngest daughter found an osprey wing feather over by the creek. I used both to paint him this picture. A few problems occurred, though.
First of all, I drew the sketch several weeks before I actually began painting because I've been dealing with covid for many weeks and just didn't have the energy or vitality to continue working on it. I had intended for the border around the cat to be done as weathered wood but when I actually got to that part of the painting, I found that the surface of the paper had been damaged. I used Baohong 100% cotton paper. It's a good paper but the disaster occurred and as I put on the first wash, what a mess.
I got creative, though, and the weirdness that appeared reminded me of some of the scenery around me here in Oregon and this forest. So I went from there and what I came up with is a very muted high mountains on the right, a waterfall, and then on the left, the soaring ospreys that we see in the sky here. There's an osprey nest across the creek in a big old dead tree. I'm not completely happy with the painting---when are we ever?----but I feel like I salvaged the painting and my son liked it.
First of all, I drew the sketch several weeks before I actually began painting because I've been dealing with covid for many weeks and just didn't have the energy or vitality to continue working on it. I had intended for the border around the cat to be done as weathered wood but when I actually got to that part of the painting, I found that the surface of the paper had been damaged. I used Baohong 100% cotton paper. It's a good paper but the disaster occurred and as I put on the first wash, what a mess.
I got creative, though, and the weirdness that appeared reminded me of some of the scenery around me here in Oregon and this forest. So I went from there and what I came up with is a very muted high mountains on the right, a waterfall, and then on the left, the soaring ospreys that we see in the sky here. There's an osprey nest across the creek in a big old dead tree. I'm not completely happy with the painting---when are we ever?----but I feel like I salvaged the painting and my son liked it.