Untamed Land

Untamed Land
Untamed Land

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Coyote Reborn, and some Bugs

In 2006 I completed this 16x20" Coyote painting titled, Golden Light. It was chosen to be displayed for a year in the prestigeous, George Phippen Art Museum in Arizona. Although it was not for sale while it was in the museum show, I hoped that it would generate some interest from art collectors. No one ever contacted me about it.
It sat in storage for years until I put it into the facelift stack. I loved the Coyote itself but the foreground was too heavy handed. Especially the grasses.
The first thing I did was block out everything except the Coyote itself.
Next I re-painted the background using richer, darker colors than the original version. Then I roughed in the Coyote's legs.
Because of the strong contrasts in the composition, I had to make endless minor adjustments, toning down, or brightening up various parts of the painting. At some point I had to decide that it was finished. Now it looks almost nothing like the original version.
The remodel easily took more time than it took to paint it the first time around. I'm considering changing the name. I'm toying with, Lean Mean Coyote Machine. What do you think? Is it too lame?
Yesterday I took a few minutes to photograph some insects in a field near my home. In the above photo, a bumblebee is gathering pollen next to a small fly. I'm grateful that there are almost no houseflies around here. Also no fleas, ticks, cockroaches, or any insect pests except mosquitos.
We have no scorpions, centipedes, crickets, or dangerous spiders. Our butterflies and grasshoppers are few and far between, and very small. We also have very few ants. I do wish that we had cool bugs like walking sticks, and preying mantids.
Most dragonflies are also very small. the one full sized dragonfly is almost black in color.
When you get a close look, you can see more colors.

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