59th Street Pond, Central Park

Recently I was painting in Central Park.  I hadn't counted on how busy it would be; hordes of people walking about made it difficult to focus. I wasn't getting great results with my watercolors.  Then I found a quieter spot near the 59th Street pond, and this duck sitting calmly at the shore.  Zen moment.

Alice painting; stage 1

Yes I'm painting with real brushes again.  I love digital but there is just really nothing like the feeling of working with a brush and real paint, on real canvas.

This image has a bit of history.  I drew it onto the canvas last year, probably around this time of year.  But I wasn't ready to paint it.  So I packed it up and took to New Orleans, but didn't paint it there either.  So back it came to New York with me, unpainted still.

Some combination of the days of rain and I don't know, I'm finally feeling it, here. 

This the underpainting.

Icarus

I'm working on a book cover for a friend's second book.  The cover image is going to be based on the legend of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun...

so I'm doing some color sketches...this one i particularly like.