This is the beginning of the third painting this year with a concentration on water. This time a gannet in flight, soaring over the ocean. This image was generously supplied by Avenue, through Wikipedia Commons.
Northern Gannets are found in Newfoundland and at Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve is one of the largest nesting colonies of gannets in the world. If you don't mind cliffs, the view is amazing and you'll find gannets in their thousands who return to the same nest here each year.
I've pulled out my oils for this and had forgotten how lovely they are to use after fighting with acrylics for the last few paintings. This is on 18 x 24 gallery canvas. I had done an initial sketch for the piece to get a feel for it, then drew straight onto the canvas with thinned burnt umber and now am starting to block in shapes. I will build it from there with thin layers of paint. I'm using just turps or Liquin for the paint when needed, but mostly applying it straight from the tube once the initial layers are down.
Its not much to look at yet, but I'm hoping it will start coming together over the next few days.
