Bethvision; now in color!

Well, it's been an intense couple of weeks at home, but I think things are getting better now. We're getting into a routine at least, which will go a long way toward allowing me to think more about work. I've been busy, but at least not totally idle.

This weekend I got to messing around with some of the references I took, and I ended up doing a bunch of digital color studies of ideas for paintings. Some are more involved than others (see fox and cougar), but at least they've been getting me to think more about painting.....you know, with color and stuff. They might look a little photo-manipulation-y at this point, but for the most part I could start painting off of them. I used some silly photoshop filters on the ones I'm posting here because they look better that way than with all my cross-hatchy digital strokes.

These first two I'm most optimistic about. I know they might seem a little cliche, but I like that sometimes. The cougar I'm thinking of doing really quite large, maybe 36" wide or something like that. It was done from this image I took out in Byron, and the references of the young cougar out at Oxbow. I think the fox would be nice done larger as well. I like the color in that one--I originally did the water in the same blueish palette the others are in, but when I was messing with the color filters in photoshop I found I liked it a whole lot better in green. :)

I was messing around with the duck photos from the last post and came up with this one. I'm not sure I like it well enough to paint it right now, but I like the idea of ducks or geese sitting on ice. I have some shots of frozen reeds that are sort of neat.

These last two were done first, and only in about 15 to 20 minutes each. Not sure I like either, but they helped me at least get some ideas down to start with. I've only seen wild snowy owls three times in my life, but they're always so cool to see. I remember only seeing the markings moving over the snow, the rest of the feathers blended right in. The last was an early idea for a geese in mist painting. Still needs work.