A blog about painting and sketching by wildlife artist Shari Erickson
Deja vu all over again (one of my favorite Yogi Berra-isms) seems to be a theme with this contest for me! I sure do hope to win someday! These are sharp-tailed grouse, which gather before dawn in flocks where the males perform fabulously ridiculous and sometimes rather violent dances to attract the attention of the females, which appear to be half ignoring them!
This painting will be the next California Duck Stamp! It is a pair of Barrow's Goldeneye ducks, 13 x 18 inches, in Acrylic. There will be a press release soon and I'll post a link to it. I am going to have a really good weekend I think!
Here it is at last! The Mural Mosaic "Kunamokst". It's 21 feet long and 11 feet high! 180 artists were involved in it's creation, all from the West Coast. It is on display in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, through the Olympic Games. Go to http://www.muralmosaic.com/kunamokst.html to see an image of the mural with each painting being clickable to it's own window, enlarged with info. My panel is #147. Scroll down my blog to see and read about this panel as it developed.
Step 7: Really getting into detail on the duck now. Still a long way to go....
Step 1: Here is our duckie now in his native surf habitat. I've painted him in pretty quickly and as you can see, it will take a few layers of paint to cover up the background showing through him. Oh, this is acrylic by the way.
Step 2: Here he is after a bit more paint, starting to give him some dimension. I will probably paint on him a little more and then work on the water and rocks. I typically work on the whole painting, bringing all the elements together in stages. Some artists do the subject to completion and then do the background, or visa versa. My paintings tend to be a mess until the very last stages.
Some drawings from my sketchbooks, all done from life.
I cleaned it up and came up with a final sketch
This sketch I transfered onto the panel.
The sketch above is a detail from a work in progress for the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.
Thayer's Gull ACEO
Red-breasted Nuthatch ACEO
#1 Songbird Series
These two are both painted with Golden's new Open Acrylics on cold-pressed rag board. They are ACEO sized - 2.5 x 3.5 inches. Please e-mail me at shari11@sharierickson.com if you are interested in buying an original or a limited edition print. I am very interested in painting ACEO sized art and have plans for several series. If you purchase the first of a series, you will be given first choice to buy further paintings in that series. I have currently started three series: Spanish Horses, Waterfowl, and songbirds. My ACEO sized originals are available for $100.
Driveby Sunset 5x7
I've just discovered a wonderful new paint seemingly made just for me! Golden's Open Acrylics are perfect for my way of working and I look forward to finding out just how versatile they are. I've always loved oil painting but the resulting headaches from the fumes have kept me away. Over the years my opaque works have been primarily in acrylic and gouache with a short stint with casein. I can already see that having worked with all these other types of paint has been of benefit in becoming familiar with the open acrylics. They don't really mimic any of the others but have a combination of qualities which remind me of all the others. They dry slowly and are very blendable. The colors are more luminescent than traditional acrylics ( in my opinion of course). They work up for me much faster than gouache, which can be very fussy to work with. The relative transparency of each pigment seems to follow along the lines of the other types of paint.
The top painting was done outdoors on a hot day to see how the paint does for plein aire, although this painting is from a blurry photo taken from a car window. It is 5x7 inches on gesso board. I found the open acrylics to be wonderful for working outdoors. They truly did stay wet and didn't even begin to thicken up over the several hours they were exposed to 90 degree heat. My biggest problem was remembering not to rest my hand on my wet painting!
The bottom painting is of a female Cinnamon Teal. It is 2.5 x 3.5 inches on ragboard. I am interested in painting miniatures and decided to try one. I also wanted to see if I could get a decent amount of detail with the open acrylics. They are very similar to tradional acrylics in this regard. This tiny little painting is ACEO size. I may do a series of miniatures for ACEO collectors. Let me know if you are interested in purchasing an original or perhaps a limited edition print. I would charge around $100 for this size to cover my time and effort.
Tule Chinook Salmon Gouache
"Luna Light, Panther Might" Cougar Acrylic
"Meadow Dance" Andalusian Horse Gouache
"Broken Feather' Red-Tailed Hawk Casein
"Alsea Springer" Spring Chinook Salmon Gouache
Deer Fawn Oil
Northern Leopard Frog Watercolor
Watercolor of a Band-tailed Pigeon for the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.
