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I entered another duck stamp contest recently for the state of Delaware. For a period of five years Delaware has been featuring a duck species and a hunting dog on their stamp and since these are two of my favorite subjects to paint I decided their state was a good place to start. I won my first stamp contest here two years ago when they featured a Chesapeake Bay retriever and canvasback duck, the painting featured on my home page. This year they featured a black Lab and long-tailed ducks.

Designing a piece for a duck stamp contest is always a challenge as there are usually restrictions to size, species depicted and whether the state wants landmarks or other habitat included. For me it involves research into the species, it's habitat, plumage variations, etc. Accuracy in all these areas is extremely important. It's also challenging as these contests usually draw some very talented artists so the competition is tough. And even if you've done all your homework and turned out a very nice piece in the end it comes down to the judges and what they like. And only one can win.

Knowing all this I chose to enter anyway and started by looking through my photo references for appropriate poses. Long-tailed ducks are common along both coasts, but not in the Inland Northwest where I live. I have seen them here, but only rarely and had a few photos. To educate myself better I relied on friends photos and watched hunting videos and nature shows to get more familiar with this species. I then designed my painting based on all that information.

The beginning stages of any painting are always a little scary. The first layers are basic washes to just get the shapes down. As I mainly work in acrylic I can easily make changes along the way if something is not working. As I look at these beginning steps I often wonder if I'll be able to pull anything together from this mess!

As you can see in this image things have started to come together. I ended up repainting the water three times trying to get the waves to look right. The first two ducks are mostly done and the dog is blocked in and texture is being added to the rocks. Over 50 hours later I finally had the piece finished. I packaged it up and sent it off with a blessing.

The contest was held April 12th. Despite all the hard work it was not chosen as this years Delaware duck stamp. Somewhat disappointing as I was hoping for a repeat of two years ago. The finalists can be viewed here:

http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/fw/Hunting/Pages/WaterfowlStampContestWinners.aspx

I have decided to name the piece "Delaware Dreams" for a few reasons. First, I was dreaming about a second win here. Second, after doing all the research on hunting sea ducks, I was dreaming of doing this myself one day. And, of course, every hunter dreams of having a great dog and a great hunt and long-tailed ducks are highly prized.

"Delaware Dreams" will be available for purchase when the piece is returned to me in a few weeks. Please watch my website for information on that in the near future.

For some time now I have been wrestling with the idea of creating a full-fledged website instead of, or in addition to, my blog. Don't get me wrong, I loved my blog, but felt I needed a better way to showcase my work that looked polished and professional. I also wanted to still be able to write about my art and my artistic journey so I started looking for ways to do both. I researched many options, made a choice and got started. Though I'm no website expert I have had a little experience and, by looking at some tutorials, felt I was up to the challenge. Well, after one week and many hours I still couldn't get past the home page. I was frustrated, tired and very humbled, but I tried again. After the second week I still hadn't gotten any further despite putting in several hours. I threw up my hands in despair thinking I would never be able to do this and knowing I could not afford to pay someone to do it for me. That's when I found Fine Art Studio Online!

Welcome to the home of my new website and blog!

I am very happy to report that with minimal effort on my part I was able to put this website together and I couldn't be more pleased. Fine Art Studio Online (FASO) has made it very simple and affordable to put together the type of website I need by using templates designed with artists in mind that are still somewhat customizable. So look around and let me know what you think. It is pretty much where I want it to be, but I will be tweaking it here and there as I have time.

Now that the website is finished I can get back to more important things like painting! Currently on my easel is the start of a painting depicting a pair of tundra swans that I photographed last fall. I took over 100 photos of these two birds as they rested in some quiet backwater not far from my house. The light was soft and diffused and the fall colors were vibrant. The swans were incredibly co-operative, coming quite close while I stayed tucked behind some convenient blackberry bushes.

Eventually, they made their way to the end of the little bay and like two jumbo airplanes taxing into position, they rose running and splashing along the length of their water runway until they rose into the air and disappeared. I got several excellent photos of this and that's the basis for this next painting. Even though I have good reference it's going to be a challenge to get the fall colors reflected in the water as well as the splashes as they take off. Hopefully, I will be up to the challenge as landscapes are not really my area of expertise. We shall see. I have a pretty good start so far, but it's taken a few tries to get it there. I will try to post some of the progress as I go. In the meantime, enjoy looking around!

Blessings!