unfinished paintings

As a change of pace [and in penance for not posting any finished paintings yesterday] I figured I'd post a few snapshots of paintings in progress. Most of these are only initial block-ins of paint, lacking detail, but perhaps interesting to someone.

First two paintings below are birds-on-wire subjects [of course], both are 20x20". I plan to keep these simple and loose. Most of the work on these will be adjusting the "balance" of the birds in the paintings, and the technique I will be using will be to treat the birds and wire as negative space, whittling away at them by laying in the light blue/white of the sky around them, cutting into the darker shapes to form them. The first painting might need a few flying/landing birds to add more interest, and the second painting could probably use some detail in the house (like maybe some green slats on the face of it, leaving dark shadows between the slats).

I like the loose fingerpaint-feel of the streetcar painting below (11x14"). I also like the tone of green I've started with here - it's not quite the same as the reference photo but I'll probably stick with it. This one just needs a few choice details I think. (please forgive the out-of-focus-ness and odd lighting of these, by the way - I did call them "snapshots" on purpose, afterall!)

The next will probably remain the loosest of all these [I'm sensing a theme here]. I'll probably be adjusting some of the color in the sky a bit and adding more interest in the dark land mass below as well as laying in the white of the river in a thicker layer of paint. Other than that, I'm liking the abstract feel of this one. (you just have to trust me that the painting is ten times better in person than the representative snapshot here)

The last two here (both 14x11") are a bit less inspired. I'm painting the egret because I've had requests for egret/swamp type subject matter - it's rendered a bit stiff for me in its current iteration, so I'll be loosening it up some more, maybe adding some encroaching cypress branches or spanish moss or what-have-you. The cat painting is for cat lovers - who else - not sure how much more I'll work on this one. It's fairly interesting as is but I suppose it could use some more detail and the ever popular "what-have-you".

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by!