Richeson 75 Small Works and Miniatures Show

I am very happy to announce that I won second place with my harpy eagle painting- which I believe is a $500 gift certificate for art supplies from Richeson. What an honor and how lucky am I?! I tried to put the announcement here but can't figure out how, so just have a bit of the wording pertaining to the show and my piece.
I can't seem to pull up the harpy photo- for some reason it comes up as other pieces. So you'll just have to go to my website and look in the miniature paintings category, the website for Richeson 75 show or look at my older blogs with the harpy on them. Sorry for the inconvience. I have my website link to the right- you can just link to that, then go into the miniature paintings to see the harpy eagle.

"Awards Jurors for this competition were Terry Howell Stanley, PSA, Richeson 75 Director; Julie Jilek, Richeson Gallery Director, and award winning Artist & Instructor Jeffrey Hargreaves. We are proud to announce the winners of the Richeson 75Small Works 2010 competition!

Second Place: Non-Oils is "Harpy Eagle" by Carol Andre. "This painting is only
3.5"x2.5" and the lifelike qualities of this miniature bird portrait are amazing."

Finished Harpy Eagle

I've finished the harpy and finally gotten him photographed. These birds are soooo amazing. We were fortunate enough to be able to stand very close to this fellow and really get some close observation. So aloof, so regal, so "of another world". Just awe-inspiring. I'm very happy with my efforts on this fellow. He was a joy to paint once I got those feathers figured out!

A Pooka and a Harpy

I believe I've finished the Pooka, altho I am not completely satisfied. It was a photo taken indoors and so more difficult to get the lighting. But for now I am calling her done. Do you know what a Pooka is? Do you remember the old Jimmy Stewart movie "Harvey" about Elmer P. Doud and his 6 ft. tall buddy, the white rabbit named Harvey? Well, Harvey was a pooka. A pooka is a large, mythical creature. This Pooka, isn't so large, but she can be "mythical"!!! :-) When she was a puppy she had "spectacles", but once she'd "caught" me with that face, she lost most of her sabling, so now she's mainly tan with a bit of sabling (the dark fur) on her back and a very dark sabled tail. This piece is done in casein.


I and a friend went to the Russian museum last Thurs. and really enjoyed it. She and I did alot of talking about Flemish masters and their technics. She is taking classes on how to do this. It turns out that is a bit similar to what I've begun doing so I started trying to do a bit more along those lines with this harpy. All these feathers are driving me crazy, but I think it is coming along ok. Time will tell. Obviously it is a WIP and has a long way to go yet. I think I like this technic more and more as I go along. I am doing this piece in acrylic as it lends itself to this technic more than the caseins or gouache.