Ducks

What’s Up, Duck? 8 x 10, oil on canvas panel

When we lived in Bath, England for 8 months in 2006-7, we used to walk past a music supply shop called ‘Duck, Son & Pinker’. Since ‘Duckie’ is sometimes used in England as a term of endearment, my husband thought this was an appropriate title for me, our 4 year old son and baby daughter!

From that time, the name stuck in our (half-British) family too. This male duck (from a photo I took in Holland, MI last year) seems to be talking to his mate with some concern, echoing both a marital communication and the famous line from Bugs Bunny.

New Paints!

Some of my sons gave me a new set of paints for my birthday, (something they’d noticed from my birthday wish list)!

They are the Essential palette of Geneva Artist Oil Paints from Geneva Fine Art, made by Mark Carder in Texas. I had been watching videos by Mark Carder on DrawMixPaint.com, and on YouTube. I liked his limited palette ideas, his method (drawing on a mid-toned neutral background, careful paint mixing and placing color shapes in their right place from the beginning), description of his paints (high pigment load mixed with slow-drying medium), and his finished painting results and those of his students. I have been using them ever since then and am very pleased with the results.

Here is the first painting I did with them:

More about this painting in the next post!