When I Fight With a Painting

As promised a brief look at a recent painting that I just struggled with. Sometimes a painting seems to just effortlessly go along start to finish, and every now and then it is a real struggle. I thought I would show you one of those.

 This image of three birds developed out of me scribbling onto some wet paint. I often enjoy the game of this, finding an image and re-shaping things. I really liked the composition and three birds, but midway through the colors were not working. Mostly the background. I think I changed it many times and nothing seemed to work. (That is when I quit for a day or two.) When I next came back to it I took drastic action and just painted over the entire image a dark warm brown tone (see above). There is something oddly taking a painting you have spent a lot of time on and covering it up.

Then little by little I went and 'erased' the parts to expose the birds, leaving the dark color as a sort of shading then went added highlights. The above image is what it looks like when I do this just before I blend it. 

Here it is finished.  I especially am fond of the little blue bird in the corner