Cougar and osprey feathers

[Ellen Easton]

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.

 

[Artyczar]

Love this! It's so unique, and doesn't even look like watercolor. It almost looks like gouache or acrylic, yet there are some nice little washes in it. You done-did great! Nice colors in this too.

 

[Queen Bee]

It turned out great. I would never have known you had so much trouble with it.

 

[ntl]

How very nice.

 

[Ellen Easton]

Thanks everyone. I just didn't have the heart to start over entirely so I'm glad I thought of some way to salvage it. I mentioned an osprey nest across the creek but I didn't mean it's in the painting. It's actually here.

Arty, it's watercolor but I just seem to be a realistic painter and I'm still not very good at doing watercolor-y painting. I don't know if I ever will be.

I just noticed I forgot to add the cougar's whiskers. They would have been done with gouache but I guess I got in a hurry to give Wade his present.

 

[Terri]

This is so lovely! I'd call this one a product of a "happy accident," those works that would never have turned out if *something* hadn't poked in. But those pokes often lead to beautiful outcomes like this.

Wonderful work.

 

[snoball]

It turned out great. I really like the painted border.

 

[Jo Castillo]

This is wonderful. I like the painted background and the feathery touch.

 

[KreativeK]

It’s an unusual pairing of subjects but does work quite well.

 

[ams]

It came out very nice. What a creative save of a paper problem. It was a wonderful gift.