Murder in Progress

Bwahahahaha! Murder on the Sound! Ok, so I'm inordinately pleased with my blog title. (Wasn't "Murder in Progress" a Goya painting?)

Yes, I am in the process of painting a herd of crows which, technically, is referred to a murder. After the last piece ("Bird, Reborn") I felt the need to bring more birds into my recent landscape series. I superimposed various crows over the landscape image, working to create movement and direction in what is otherwise a very still piece.

This is a work in progress. As you can see from the detailed pictures the birds are still very rough. I particularly like the last image I posted here because they look like poorly formed pterodactyls painted by a two year old. Yay!

The refinement process involves me working on the birds with some detail then pushing the negative space into the birds to help shape the contours. It's the taffy pull of oil painting, that back and forth in the figure ground relationship.



(See what I mean about these birds? It takes a skilled and creative artist to call these little lumps of paint crows, but no fear. We are, in fact, on track with these buggers.)