Of Foxes & Mantids

During drawing class today, I did a quick sketch of this Praying Mantis that was wandering his way along our sidewalk yesterday afternoon. They are such cool bugs, and as long as they’re not hanging out by the hummingbird feeder, I like seeing them in the yard. I love the way I was able to soften the shadows in comparison to the Mantis itself - the shadow for his leg on the bottom left just makes me happy!

Then I decided to begin another master copy that none of my students had given a shot in painting class. This one is a Winslow Homer, who’s work I absolutely love. This one in particular has such lovely graphic shapes - white snow, black crows, blue sea and red/brown fox. I definitely didn’t finish it, but I’ve already learned a fair bit about how Homer composes paintings.

My start on the Copy. Looking now, I really need to widen the foxes head & neck!

And here’s the original piece. See, those black blotches in mine are actually birds!

Then I moved on to the painting I started last week - the cool fall woods scene. Today was mostly a day for mixing some cool greens oranges and yellows and applying leaf shapes over and over again. A bit mindless maybe, but It’s gotta be done for the effect I want for this one. And truthfully I’m really liking it so far! Can’t wait to get back to this one on Wednesday!

-ZR