WIP: Winter Bounty

I have started this still life this past weekend. I had been wanting to do another painting using my precious taxidermy crow, but needed to have "the right" composition. For quite a while I did not have an inspired idea... then I got two! This is one of them...

The arrangement is set up on a green painted nineteenth century bench table (the table top flips up to form a back, with the drawer shelf forming a bench when the table top is not needed). The crow stands on the bench next to a pair of ice skates on the crow's left. (I used a clear glass jar to help hold him upright). On his right is a cast-off scarf. Above the crow is a red ribbon that cascades down over the flipped table top, and there is a note tacked to the underside of the flipped top.

The note is actually a 19th century handwritten posting of bounty to be awarded for dead starlings and crows turned in to the Philadelphia authority. I found the bounty facsimile on the internet and printed it out on cream colored paper.

The photos here show the initial underpainting, done in raw umber with highlights wiped out, on the 30" x 24" linen canvas.

Another image shows the bounty notice I printed out, and the final image shows the local color painting phase, on my easel with the studio life set up in the background.

Here are the colors I used for this first color phase:

Yellow Ochre

Burnt Umber

Burnt Sienna

Transparent Red Oxide

Alizarin Crimson

Ultramarine Blue

Viridian

I expect to have this layer dry and able to accept the next phase by this weekend... and will post my progress at that point!