Little Chickadee and Apples

Today I painted a bowl of apples with a little black-capped chickadee sitting on one of the apples. It is similar to another painting I did a couple months ago.  Here is the painting so far.  It is unfinished, obviously.  I have to finish the chickadee - and work more on the bowl, apples, and background.  I am really enjoying this painting.  Looking at it now, I see that I've got the background totally wrong.  Since the light is coming from the right side, I need to put the yellow on the right, and the darker blue and purple on the left side.  One thing I really enjoy is using the side of the brush to get texture on both the background and on the bowl as well.  I will post the finished painting underneath this one.

"Little Chickadee with Apples" Oil on Gessoboard, unfinished, 9 x 12

(update - 4/22/2017)  I think I am finished with this one.  I took out the lip on the bowl, did more shading and highlighting on the fruit, scraped off and re-painted the background, and finished up the bird.

"Little Chickadee with Apples" Oil on Gessoboard, 9 x 12

I turned off the light in the room because the light kept reflecting off the paint and making it look like it was white in places where there was no white paint!  In person those reflections are nice, and I like them.  However, in a photograph, it gives a distorted image.  Thus, this photo is a little dark - but at least there's not a lot of weird lights on it.  I think I will take another photo with the lights on so it shows up a little better.  And looking at it now, I see that the bottom of the bowl is wrong.  Don't know how that happened. LOL!