The Goose Saga ... Continued ...

For the goslings, I am using aureolin, with a brown mix of quin. burnt orange, quin. red and indanthrone blue. The geese are painted with mixes of ultramarine blue and quin. burnt orange. The feet are quin. siena.

Just deepening the colors here.

I have placed the cast shadow, and a grey ground behind them  [quin. burnt orange and ultramarine blue].

A loose wash of aureolin and burnt orange to give the impression of tall grass  ...

I have darkened the adult geese. It looks like the grass needs  some darkening and detailing here an there, and the goslings will get more dark in the brown areas.
As I do not want to use masking, I have done the painting as a vignette. I was given some advice about masking alternatives [thank you, Peter] and will be trying Daniel Smith watercolor ground in the future.

I was given this photo recently by my farrier. It's his  border collie, Sadie. It is not a good photo for painting reference, but I think if I approach the project without my usual perfectionistic bent, and just play with it, it might make a cute painting. Scott is a genuine "good guy", and always there to replace and repair  my horse's shoeing.

As always, your comments are most welcome!

Yesterday Was OOPS Day ... with a Vengeance!

Here I was, humming along, looking cute ...
Disaster struck! For Pat's liking, the geese did not stand out well.
I sent out a plea for ideas, and got three reasonable ideas - none of which I followed [to my chagrin]. Thank you very much Audrey Montoya [great watercolorist - check out her blog], Annie Bennett [lovely and eclectic blog] and of course Crystal Cook, who always answers a call for help and advice on painting and selling paintings. I really appreciate your ideas!!! 

But no, I did it my way ...

I am making the most of a bad painting, and am using it to try out different strategies. I am doing the same initial graded washes, but keeping the painting warm - the geese and grasses will be variations of yellows, golds and browns. Here's hoping it works!!!
As for Bruno and riding, same story - I was just not thinking yesterday.

As always, your comments are most welcome!!! 

The Geese Are Gaggling Along ...

I left our happy honkers here ...

In this photo, I have started on the shadows of the geese, and  have done an initial glaze of all the feet.

Here, I have added some detail to the feet. I have also gone over the goslings with another wash of aureolin and the dark brown mixture. And I have done a w/w application of a grey mixture on the goose bums.

I'll be working mostly on the adults, darkening and integrating the shadows, and adding some detail to the heads of the two on the right. So far ... so good! The background looks very nebulous, and I am not sure yet what I want to do with it.  I am thinking of just putting in their cast shadows, or that plus a dark diagonal suggestive of grass. Don't know.

As always, your comments are most welcome!