Flight risk...

I finished my first painting of 2017. Well, I actually finished it two weeks ago but didn’t get round to writing a blog post about it until now.  This is the one I started in November so it took a reaaaalllly long time but just because I was only painting for a couple of hours a week.

'Flight Risk' - acrylic on canvas 30cm x 40cm 

I have very mixed emotions at the moment as this is my last full week in my temporary job in the Animal Shelter with Wednesday next week being my last paid day. I go back to Ireland for a week’s holiday on Friday and when I get back to Scotland I’ll be back to just volunteering on a Wednesday morning and working two days a week in my other part-time job.  While I’m very happy to have four and a half days a week free for painting again, I’m really going to be sad to be back to only seeing the animals at the shelter once a week. I really loved working there and am open to the universe if it wants to somehow create a permanent part-time job there for me! That would be a pretty perfect way to make a living – art and animals!

Anyway, the idea for this painting was sparked during another of our walks on the beach. The three beaches we walk on all have rivers running from the hills down to the ocean and it’s always fascinating to me how the landscape changes depending on the tides and the weather. Some days the river is quite low and the rocks are visible on the shoreline as was the case on this particular day when I saw the bird’s feather lying there and thought it would make an interesting composition for another river rock painting.

You know how young children tend to ask a lot questions - why is the sky blue, why is the sun hot? Well, my inner child does the same and when I saw the feather it made me wonder if it makes it more difficult for a bird to fly straight and strong if they have feathers missing which in turn gave me the painting's title 'flight risk'. By the way, according to this, birds do depend on a full set of flight feathers for maximum efficiency when migrating long distances so, yes, losing feathers could indeed pose a flight risk (and yes, I know that the usual definition of flight risk is a person thought likely to leave the country before a court trial but I do like a play on words!)

So, that's all my news, I do have another photo reference lined up for my next painting which also includes river rocks. I can see a pattern forming here where I develop an obsession for a particular subject and paint it to death - starry skies, anyone?! This time, I included a couple of marbles sitting beside the river rocks in my composition, as I've been wanting to paint marbles for ages although initially I had planned to do them as planets in a starry sky but as that obsession is on the wane a little in favour of colourful rocks, I plonked them beside the river instead! Talking of marbles, if you haven't already seen them then check out my friend and fellow artist, Sandra Busby's marble paintings. She is the queen of marble artwork - her marbles are amazeballs! I only hope mine turn out half as good!

My next project

After that, I'm looking forward to getting stuck into some Route 66 paintings - S took some fantastic photos of great scenes along our road trip and I'm itching to have a go at painting some of them once I get all that painting time on my hands again in February.

Until then, thanks for popping by and if you do have Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, please follow me there as I'm better at updating those than my blog these days.