Monday, November 09, 2009

When Life Gives You Turkeys - Painting 41

Nothing personal against turkeys, but it just kind of fit today. Paul went for his final exam this morning, and found out that one of the four members of his exam committee had come down with the flu and couldn't make it! So his final, final exam will have to wait until February! Argh! It's only just a little anti-climactic.

But life goes on. This is Painting 41. I need to complete 9 more paintings by November 20th to be at the halfway point in my 100 Paintings in a Year Challenge. That's kind of an exciting milestone to contemplate. I did this painting on the heavy cold-pressed watercolor paper I've been working on in Laure Ferlita's Imaginary Trip to Paris class. I used to swear by hot-pressed paper, but I've been very pleasantly surprised at the amount of control I still get with watercolor on this paper. Another bonus is that it takes a lot of water to make the paper buckle. I'm a lazy watercolorist, so not having to stretch my paper is a real perk to me.

For those of you wondering whatever happened to my ornithological ABC series that I had started, I hit a bit of a snag at C. I wanted C to be for crane, and I remembered that Paul had gotten fabulous photos of some sandhill cranes with their chick. Well, we have moved three times since he took those pictures and I am still looking for them. I may skip to D while I continue my search. Stay tuned...

4 comments:

Heather said...

First off, I'm sorry to hear that Paul's exam got delayed until February. Geesh! Turkey indeed! On the plus side, your turkey painting is just awesome. I find it to be very realistic. And, it IS almost Thanksgiving, so it's รก propos in 2 ways!

Unknown said...

Gabrielle thanks for the blog visit. I'll be bookmarking you also. Lovely paintings and sketches of the birds.

I'll be back.

Kelly said...

...I love your turkey! I think he'd be a very hard bird to paint. What a bummer about the exams...

Krista Meister said...

Gabrielle, now that I know you are doing the 100 Paintings Challenge, I'm going to follow it with interest! This is a beautiful turkey, by the way, and sorry to hear about your husband's exam delays. Missing you from the Paris class. Happy Thanksgiving!