Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Watchin’ all the squirrels go by ...


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Squirrel Watchers  © 2012 by Karen Mathison Schmidt
6 x 6 inches • acrylic on archival, museum-quality GessobordTM
private collection • Scottsdale, Arizona

Here are Matilda and Roadie, engaged in one of their all-time favorite activities. Yep, it’s a squirrel stake-out!

My main challenge on this one was to combine some pretty busy textures  – Roadie’s markings, the leaves on the vine-covered oak, and the dappled light on the grass in the distance – in such a way that they didn’t compete with each other. Keeping Matilda’s coat and the portion of lawn in the middle distance relatively smooth help to balance those busier textured areas.

Another challenge: I wanted to see if I could paint a small painting with a fair amount of detail using one brush: a synthetic sable No. 10 flat. I only changed to a No. 2 round for my signature.

And here are my work-in-progress photos:













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