Slow but Steady

Progress has been slow but steady on my still life painting. I finally got all the color in but need to make a few more readjustments on the small pitcher before taking an update photo of it. I need to wrap up the painting as I am itching to move on to several quick color studies. This has been a good lesson for me. That said, I am working out a composition for one of the paintings I have been wanting to do for quite a while.
In the meantime, it is plenty busy around here. In the past, I always enjoyed seeing the baby cows and sheep in my neighborhood. Now, I get to see baby seals and seabirds! The other day I was walking Twill on the beach when I came upon a marked off area with people stationed at various points routing folks around. It was right down from my house too. Turns out a baby seal had been born that morning and would be on the beach until the tide came up enough for it to rejoin its mother. I ran home and grabbed the camera then, after taking a couple of pictures, ran home and grabbed my painting gear and loaded it into the bike trailer I made. I grabbed a quick bite of lunch and rode down to the beach to join the seal warders and paint. I stayed until the newborn seal pup got back into the water around 5pm. Hopefully the mother was waiting for it somewhere in the waves. A representative from the local park ranger was busy shooing people away as the baby swam south in the surfline. Here are a couple of pictures. It was such an interesting day.

 

The middle picture is of my bike and trailer at rest of course. This was the first chance I had to test out the trailer and it worked just great! Twill was only there a few minutes as she came down with my husband. We were stationed at a good distance. I had the biggest telephoto lens we own on our camera. The mother seal will abandon her baby if people get too close. Hopefully this one didn't.
This beautiful area continues to inspire and amaze me. Next week I plan to have an update, perhaps the final one, on my still life.
-Renee