Stepping Out

Stepping Out (8x10, soft pastel)

Did this painting today. I did the pencil sketch for this months ago. The photo it was done from was taken almost a year ago. I'm very lucky in that I have some neighbours with a mixture of farm animals that allow me to go up and take photos of the animals. The idea for this painting has been with me for a loooooong time and finally today I decided to do the painting.

When I looked at the sketch I realised that if I did the composition correctly it could look almost as if this chicken were about to step right out of the picture.

It is done on red paper and I like the way in some places that red comes through the painting and the underpainting to give a bit of a glow to the entire piece.

I feel so risque using coloured paper! Until yesterday I had only painted on black paper.

This would have gone better and easier if I had chosen the same colour to underpaint the chicken's right side as I had for the deepest parts of the barn behind it. I chose a lighter colour and had to fight with things a bit to get as dark as I wanted it to be.

But I'm happy with how it turned out and just ordered a bunch more coloured Mi Tentes papers to try. I feel bad for the stash of black that I have. It may be hanging around twiddling it's thumbs for awhile now...