Quail:

WHERE IDEAS AND COMPOSITIONS COME FROM:
I was having a conversation with a collector about where my ideas and compositions come from. The main answer is "From a lifetime of spending time in nature". That is, since I was a little girl with my first Golden Field Guides I have studied, absorbed, and spent time out in nature. Being an artist I have always looked at things differently. I immediately assemble elements in my mind to make interesting compositions. I get inspired by the way light hits a rock or a plant and think what color paints I would use to capture it.

These things "percolate" in my mind constantly. Sometimes things rise to the surface and beg to be painted. Sometimes I have the almost "exact" photo or couple of photos that I have taken that I can then refer to do the painting. This happens because when James and I are photographing, we are already working on getting the lighting and composition just right in the photo. In many ways photography is really the first step in my creative/painting process. Sometimes I have to go out and photograph some plant or tree that I want to include. Sometimes I have to scour all my books and files to find the perfect animal to fit a certain scene that I have in my mind.

In other words - ideas and the compositions for paintings - all come from a variety of sources, all based on my experiences in nature. Sometimes I plan a painting in my head for years before I finally do it.

This painting of a Gambel's quail in this instance, came to me a couple of years ago while
James and I were in the Sonoran Desert in the Tucson Area. As seen in the following sketch book I played with the idea of a backlit quail and a back lit sage and grasses against a dark back drop of rocks.

In the "thumbnail" sketch on the top left, the quail is more in a stretched out pose moving quickly across "open" ground in front of the sage plant. In the second one on the top he is more leisurely, looking on the ground for seeds, bugs etc, also in front of the sage. In the bottom sketch - the one I ended up choosing - the quail has a "cocky" raise to his head so that you can almost feel the topnotch on his head bobbing. In this one he is coming out from behind the sage giving rise to the title idea "Breaking Cover".

Here is a photo of some of the reference material I used for this painting. There are photos that James and I took of Quail at the Desert Museum in Tucson, rocks, sage and others plants I have photographed over the years, a field guide, taxidermy quail and my sketchbook.

I am creating the dark rocks that will serve to highlight the backlighting of the quail, sage and grasses. I create the organic texture of the rocks with cellophane wrap.

Here I am creating lichens on the rocks using a natural sea sponge.

The rocks are done. Since they are in the background and will be mostly covered up they are not totally detailed out.

The drawing done to size on the tracing paper, is being transferred to the painting surface using a white artist transfer paper.

In this painting I did not "block out" the main areas of the quail and sage with masking fluid. The background was simple enough to just paint on top of it. I have blocked out the quail in a dark brown before I transferred the drawing. I have also started blocking in the grasses on the ground.

The Quail is now finished.

The sage plant is finished and the grasses have been started.

This is the completed painting - "BREAKING COVER", 11 x 14. It will be going to the SETTLERS WEST GALLERY Summer Show in Tucson May 10.