After select one of my own images on my iPad, I start with a pencil outline using a 4B pencil. Once I’m happy this it I almost rub out most of the pencil work so the graphite will not smug the paper..

I usually start with the parts of the image I’m going to have most difficulty with. In this case I knew I was going to struggle with the grass.
So on a scrap of paper I decide to try a few different methods.
Unfortunately having not painted for 23years my colour mixing skill are almost no existent and I was struggling to remember the basics.

Also only having one green was not helping me much.

Having about 5% confidence in grass I decided to tackle the real thing.

Next I worked on the baby Joey and was rather impressed with the results.

My confidence was sort lived and the Pademelons face started looking like a fox, I was about ready to give up. It was getting late and I thought this painting had the better of me had I finally come across a painting that was going in the bin. In this case I slept on it and started again in the morning.

My problem was my own photograph was not very clear so I had to search the net for a clear image to see how the fur fell on the face. Once I studied a few photos I could then see my problems in my brush strokes.

Having fixed the face I continued on with the rest of the Pademelons body fur and tail.

Next I painted the shadows to ground the image and a few touch ups and signed my name.

The next morning something wasn’t looking right, I seemed to have some fluro grass and not the deep green grass of the campsite.

I spent the next 1hr or so playing around with all the blues I had mixed with yellow and all the greens mixed with yellows and reds.

As you can see I came up with a nice little colour chart as an experiment.

I also stopped in at the art shop in Maryborough to ask Tammy for a little advice about colour mixing which she was happy to help.
I was at Maryborough for the opening night of an art exhibition at Gatakers Artspace to see how things run on the night as I will be exhibiting here in a few months time.

Armed with some colour advice I was still contemplating do I try and fix the grass and possibly stuff it up or leave it alone and never be really satisfied with the result.

After a week and a few painting later I decided to tackle this painting once more and dull down the green and make it a more natural dry grass.

I must say that I’m more than happy with the result as I now have more variation in the grass and its not all the same uniform green as it once was.

Sometimes you need to revisit a painting after a few days and look at it in new light.