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

Carl just about has the more abstract, out of focus, background ready. As you can see there are only remnants of the browns and yellows he scrubbed onto the canvas in the last painting session. You've probably also noticed that Carl has obliterated the sketch he started with. Carl says not to worry though, because he's re-working the composition a little anyway. Also the black sketch won't work well on a dark background like this so he plans to spend an evening sketching on the canvas in white to figure out the poses and layout for the birds. Actually he's not sure if he'll have to sketch portions of it a third time, later, depending on what he does developing the background more fully as he starts to add the birds. He'd like to get some good detail with the birds but he wants the background to look natural enough that it won't be distracting. Of course after he says all of that he's pretty well aware that the painting has kind of a life of its own.

Carl says each painting or drawing has at least three aspects: you start with some reference, whether it is a memory or photo - or a scene in your backyard. Then you know what you want to make of the scene. But inevitably you will finish with what the scene wants to be, always different from the reference or the intention. When Carl first started doing art he got really frustrated with the third state - when the painting went somewhere different than what he planned. But Carl is slowly learning that where it goes is better than the plan - it is what makes art, art!

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.