Sun-bleached Scene (and a case of detailitis)

I've been painting a lot of animals lately so I was feeling pretty rusty for this still life. I liked how sun-bleached the scene was in the reference photo (from Paint My Photo.com). I got it to the point you see here and then went a little overboard with trying to add prickles to the cactus in great detail. The painting didn't seem balanced then in terms of detail, so I tried adding some detail to the wooden door in the background... it was all downhill from there. One of those times I wish there was an "Undo" button. (I could actually feel my brain mentally reaching for Control+Z!). Oh well. Here's the last point at which I liked the painting. Simpler times.

Sun-bleached Scene - Acrylic on 10x10 gessobord

I'm starting a new painting class at Wet Paint tonight with a new teacher - it will mean experimenting with a new color palette, and likely not painting on a black background like I always do. Yikes! It should be interesting - I'll share paintings from the class here!

Birdie

Happy New Year! This is my niece Birdie. She's a little stinker but she gets away with it because she's so cute and so sweet. She was very hard to paint with that crazy little face and her Siamese coloring, it took me several tries.

Birdie - 6x6 Acrylic on gessobord

Here is Birdie in real life...