It's been on year since I began my oil painting journey under the tutelage of Joyce Hall, master painter and owner of The Studio in Charleston.

One of the very first things Joyce taught me was how to work with placement and color and grasp a seemingly simple painting of onions (every new student paints the onions :) Rather than bore you with photos of that painting, now hanging lovingly in my mother's kitchen, I will move on to my first project, Mr. Pelican:

here the photo from which I worked:

 I loved the colors on this guy...who knew a pelican could be so beautiful?

After initial lay in done with burnt sienna my first attempt to add color was a bit disastrous:

The thing I have come to learn about painting is that the colors you think you see aren't really making up what you are seeing. I will never forget Joyce coming and saying in my ear "by the way, there is no brown in that pelican". Huh? Oh and measuring...very important.


oh and the beak...really tricky, but again, I was painting what I thought was there and I was wrong...so here's some progress:

The piling became green, the beak red. A scary prospect at first, but it started working.

I was pretty pleased at this point, but the eye of the pelican looked all wrong. Here I added violet to his body and off set it with green for feather detail.

This is my finished work. Not bad for a first go. Looking at it now, I would have used the canvas space better (his head is running off the canvas) and toned down the transition between the neck feathers to the body. I was pleased with the piling colors and the sky.

Next up...a person. Why not?