Splashing Through Life - Art by Patricia Henderson

One morning, last summer I was surprised while driving to work when a beautiful Great Egret landed in a ditch along the road. It was early in the morning and so peaceful. I thought it would be a great subject for a painting. I didn't get started on it right away, but in my mind's eye I could picture what I wanted to do. It was going to be a night scene with a dark blue background and a white moon and the beautiful white egret standing in the light of the moon. It was going to be wonderful! Well....not so much.. I decided to collage the whole background. It somehow ended up being a purplish blue monstrosity! I had made a big circular pattern in the background that was very distracting. The bird was too small in comparison to the moon. I used all the wrong colours and papers in the egret. The whole thing was a mess. I looked at it for a few days and decided I hated it. That's when I got out the gesso. It was very cathartic to slap that white paint all over the canvas. I...

I'm getting close to completing my Geese Collage! When I first started this, I had assumed that these were domestic geese, but after a bit of research on the markings on their wings and beaks, I've discovered that they are snow geese. Even better! These three fellows are on their winter vacation and have found a lovely waterfront to hang out at. I just have to finish the grasses and cattails and I'm done!

This morning was wet and dull outside, perfect for staying inside and sketching! I decided to do a small study in preparation for a larger collage piece. I got inspiration from a great photo on the website Paint My Photo  for some white geese. So while watching the Rhythmic Gymnastics on the Olympics, I sketched these fellows heading in for a dip in the pond. 7" X 9" on Illustration board © Patricia Henderson 2012

My newest collage painting "Our Daily Bread" and two others, "Frenemies" and "Marshland Morning" have been accepted into the 7th Annual Desmond Juried Art Show and Sale. Stop on by the Ridgetown Campus of the University of Guelph from July 22-August 2, 2012 and check them out! Our Daily Bread Frenemies Marshland Morning (formerly titled Elegant Ecosystem)

Finally I have finished the heron! I've also done the red-winged blackbird and have started on the cattails. The turtle and frog will be difficult, I think, because of the tiny details. This can be very frustrating, as I learned with the blackbird's eye. I had the tiny circle all cut out to the right size, only to have it fall off the tip of my finger and disappear! This only happened three times before I got it to stick! Anyway, I am going to try and work like a fiend today and get it done. (or at least very close!). I want to get it submitted to the contest, plus I need to get started on a Christmas watercolour commission.

Today I started to block in the colours in the underpainting. As you can see it looks really rough, but it will all be covered in paper eventually. The paint acts as a guide for me and also to test colours and values.

I discovered a great art contest the other day called  Eco Arts Awards . I thought it would be a great contest to enter. Artists will submit artwork with their interpretation  of the meaning of Ecology.  The first thing that sprang to mind was Wetlands. I love Great Blue Herons, so I thought I'd make one the main focus, and also in keeping with the ecology theme, I'll be using my paper collage process, using primarily papers recycled from old books and magazines if I can. I found my heron reference from  Paint My Photo  a great website where photographers can post their photos for artists to use as copyright free reference material. Thanks Tracee Murphy for the great photo! After doing a couple of thumbnail sketches, I drew my scene onto a 24 X 12" canvas. Since this piece will be fairly complicated I will loosely paint it first with acrylics to give me a guideline while applying the papers. Here is my drawing so far. I will be fixing that poor dragon...