12"x 24" oil...Rough Water Buffleheads oil painting

12"x 24" oil on board...

worked on adding several ducks tonight following my
teaching day...decided on buffleheads, or what we
waterfowlers affectionately call "butterballs"...

Here is a closeup...keeping them in a painterly mode to
be consistent with the painting scenery...and feel perhaps
more like flying and how one would see them. Often in
wildlife art, the norm for representing ducks has been more
detail upon detail...however if one is seeking realism, then
it is not realism to see such. One may get an impression of
some color, some sense of primaries and feathering...but
these ducks are flying along near 60mph...and darting about
constantly-
















Here is the background which I began with first...then
several days later worked on adding the ducks. The work
as seen above is not finished yet...as I need work on the
water, rocks...and perhaps yet a dab or two on the ducks
themselves.





























And my reference which should give you an idea just
how much liberty I took to make my own painting from
it...not a slave to it...