On the Lookout

The weekly challenge for the Daily Paintworks website was painting this crow from a given photo without using black paint from the tube. I am one of the artists that do not have black on their palette as black can easily become dull, appear isolated and "dirty" other colors. Also, to me it is more fun  creating a "cool" or "warm" black with a mix of other colors (usually blues and reds) to better tie the black/dark into the entire painting. An additional challenge here was that I painted this with acrylic paints. I really missed the smooth blending that is so great with oil paints. I think it came out OK though...

Best Buddies

Motivated to enter a pet painting into Daily Paintworks - Weekly Challenge, I finished this from a photo of our oldest hens. I wonder what they were chatting about so early in the morning....

Chatting

For almost 3 years I have chickens in the back yard. It all started when my oldest son "rescued" a stray chicken from being run over by cars on a busy street. Wrapped in his jacket on the bicycle, he brought the animal home. Unfortunately, this first chicken grew into a crowing rooster. The crowing did not work well in our suburban environment with neighbors being close all around. So we found a farm that adopted him. However, my children grew so fond of this original chicken that they begged me to replace him with (this time) females and this is how this adventure started. We are up to 20 hens now in all shapes and sizes!! They are all pets, meaning there will be only eggs and no chicken soup!! They are quite interesting characters, each one in her own way. Now this is a painting from a photo of our oldest hens as they walk across the back porch looking for treats.... This painting was also an entry to DAILYPAINTWORKS.COM.