Polly's Progress...

The macaws are slowly taking shape - this is such fun;  I can lose whole chunks of the day painting subjects like this and when I emerge it is suddenly tea-time and nothing is cooked.  I'm better prepared for this nowadays and cook before picking up a paintbrush.

Notice the droplets at the bottom left of the painting - they aren't still wet, I've painted them that way.  When I was a child, my parents took me to an exhibition and there were a set of paintings which were about five feet square of solid colour with water droplets painted all over them.  I remember studying the technique intently, storing it away for future reference.  It's been used many times on various different pictures.

One such painting was the cover illustration for a book on potatoes that I did 100 paintings of spuds for a while back.  Yesterday I discovered that the first proofs are back from the printers and it should be finalised and in print next month.  At last, 18 months of hard work will finally be made public - I can't wait!