Pleasantly Pheasant

The beginning of a new painting of a pheasant

You wouldn't want to eat the same thing every day. It would become boring and the joy of looking forward to meals would be lost.  And yet many artists paint the same subject repeatedly in exactly the same way for a variety of reasons. Maybe they sell well, or they are what the artist is best at painting.

I am a butterfly as an artist. I leap from one subject to the next and yet when I do settle on an idea I will play with it, looking at every way I could possibly improve with each new brushstroke. I have settled with the notion of painting pheasant.  In my mind I can still see the bird in the lane that caught my attention and made me yearn to paint them in the first place. There is an emotuonal connection in that I fell in love with it as a possible painting. I have a beautiful image in my head that I desperately want to portray on paper.

I couldn't wait to start painting today and now have not one but four  pheasants in various stages of development. They are all very different and each is a favourite at the moment. I have changed the washes,  head positions, eyes, feathers yet kept all of the compositions similar.

On this painting I am eager to add details around the eye and work downwards towards the fabulous,proud chest.  But I will put my brushes down and leave my studio with that fantastic high of wanting to race back tomorrow to complete the exciting pieces.

Pheasantly Surprised Again!

I hope when I walk into my studio tomorrow morning I will be "pheasantly" surprised!

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