One Year Later...

A good test of what I have learned in a year was to try and do another painting of the little fox and compare it to my experience of painting the first one last year.

First of all, I knew that if I started with a grey value underpainting, I should make that painting accurate to what I wanted the finished artwork to look like. I spent a lot of extra time on the first fox trying to cover up problems with the value underpainting.

Second, I knew what colors to mix to get the fur tones I wanted. The first painting, I wasn't very familiar with the oil paints. After a year of working with them, I was a lot more confident.

Third, I did learn something about the anatomy of foxes from all the drawings I did last time, and that did help me in getting a better drawing in less time.

Overall, it was a happier and less stressful painting experience. I did struggle with getting the eyes right because I couldn't use an exact photo reference, but I learned from that too. Mostly to trust myself when the painting seems off. I learned that painting is just like anything else, practice, practice, practice makes all the difference. I often have a faulty belief that I should just be automatically good at something just because I want to do it. Rats, all my teachers were right about having to work to master the skills!

Jeff's Corner: She couldn't find Carnegie Hall on the first try either...