Monday, October 15, 2012

The Latest Challenge... Sandhill Cranes!

I love to paint... but really just don't do it as much as I would like.  To remedy this, I have decided to pick a handful of juried art shows that are local and submit pieces.  The first of these happens to be the art show at the Sandhill Crane Festival.  But I ran into an immediate challenge; I needed a picture of a Sandhill Crane to paint!  Unfortunately almost everything I found online was done by professional photographers and I am not about to "steal" their images!  So... I drug the hubby, the 3 year old, and yes, even the 5 month old out to the flooded farmers' fields on an old country road to try and get some pictures of the cranes.  And, of course, all of the cranes we found were nowhere near the road.  Eventually we ended up with a few images that we thought we may be able to crop once we got home... and after a lot of editing and some major zoomed in cropping, this is the image I came up with..


I love the composition but the detail and clarity are, well, not so good!  Since I am painting it however, all of that can easily be fixed.  I love watching a painting emerge from a blank canvas and it was the same with this painting!


And my final product... I can't say that I am exstatict with it... but happy enough for my perfectionist self.  Wish me luck at the art show!

A Sandhill Social Hour

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