"Blue Heron"
18" X 24" Stretched Canvas, Acrylic Painting

This is Carl's first project for 2004. Before Christmas, while Carl was verifying his reservation for his June vacation to Minnesota, the resort owner, Ray, mentioned that they were building a new cabin. They plan to name it the "Blue Heron" cabin. Ray said they are looking for some art to hang in the new cabin when it is complete just in case Carl wanted to consider painting the bird. Carl said he is always reluctant to take on any time specific project with his artwork because he never knows how long he's going to spend on any given painting. Carl laughs when he tries to describe what a Blue Heron looks like. "It's an ugly bird." But Carl's curiosity got the best of him as he began researching Blue Herons - what they look like, where they live, and how they behave.

During the process he stumbled on some fantastic wildlife and landscape photos by a professional photographer, Stephen O. Muskie. Carl sent Mr. Muskie an email to see if he'd consider granting a limited license so Carl could use a photo of the Blue Heron in a painting. After a pleasant exchange of emails Mr. Muskie indeed granted Carl a license. Since then Carl's been playing with the photos trying to figure out which one to use and how to put together a proper composition for a painting. Carl is having trouble deciding whether to paint a standing bird or a flying bird so he's inclined to create a composition that contains both. To begin he's working from a reference that has two of Mr. Muskie's photos merged - and resized - to create an interesting scene. By the way, you can see Mr. Muskie's photography at www.outtakes.com.

Carl told Ray he's not sure how long the painting project will take - and he's not certain if the painting will be any good when he's done. But hopefully it will provide another interesting adventure in art as Carl meanders into a new mystery of sketching subjects, mixing colors, playing with textures, and developing emotion through the eyes.

One thing in particular to watch with this painting: Carl recently discovered a way to make acrylic look a lot like oil with more luminosity and memory (the paint retains the brush strokes and patterns as it dries). Carl likes acrylic because it lets him create fine detail, it dries very fast, and it can be quite opaque (he says it covers mistakes well!). But Carl likes the way oil shines and shows texture and brush lines - it produces more of a rich, fine painting. As Carl mixes away this evening, putting a gloss gel into the acrylic pigments, he's mumbling about developing an acrylic style that gives him the best of acrylic and oil. Well... we shall see..

This project is a painting based on a photograph
by Stephen O. Muskie. You can see more of Mr. Muskie's
photography by visiting his website at www.outtakes.com

Copyright(c) 2002, 2003, 2004 Carl E. Gluck. All rights reserved.