More Works in Progress

The spoonbill painting continues to develop. I'm starting to block in the leaves, but still deciding if I'm happy with the sky. The blue seems wrong somehow. The sky in the photo this painting is based on is a deeper blue which certainly makes the bird stand out but somehow it feels like a stereotypical and boring blue, if that makes sense. Any suggestions?

I've also started another painting. I'm painting it for our living room and I wanted it to be more loose; less realistic. This is the first painting I've ever done specifically to hang in our own home. I switched to a canvas panel and I want to allow some of the canvas texture to show through. My main complaint about canvas panels is that the panels have a tendency to bow a little. I am hoping that once the painting is finished I can flatten it out somehow.

My models for the painting are from the Seattle Aquarium. The camera's flash really brought out the brown in their feathers, but I'm trying to paint the bird as you'd see it in the wild, where the natural light brings out more of the grays, blues and blacks in the feathers. These birds are called black oystercatchers, but their main diet is actually more along the lines of mussels and limpets that they find along the tideline in the Pacific. We love the Oregon coast, and look forward to spotting oystercatchers amongst the rocks on our visits so it is an appropriate subject for us. I'm still developing the background, obviously still painting the mussels, and still fussing over the bird's bill. Oystercatcher's bills are a bit unusual in shape and it is throwing me off a little. Overall I'm really enjoying the project though.