Well, that's what we'll start with, anyway. 

I was in a park near work collecting leaves for a project, when I came upon this man feeding peanuts to the squirrels. I must have taken 20 or 30 pictures of this scene. I mean check out the squirrels! Those black blurs are squirrels coming and going - in the few minutes I stood there, snapping away, he must have individually fed 20 or 30 squirrels!  

 

I was really just trying to get a good picture of the squirrels, but when I got home, after looking at two or three of these pictures, I completely forgot about the squirrels. I kind of fell in love with this man as a subject. 

 

I mean, wow. 

There's a species of resignation in his face that reads as a quiet kind of sadness despite the fact that the squirrels were coming and taking the peanuts directly from his hands and the fact that he must find pleasure in this activity. Seeing the lush foliage around him that is nevertheless in an early stage of decay... as I looked at the photos, a story about him fell into place.  

I was quite taken with the aptness of it's being fall in this little scene - and suddenly, I realized, I'd captured something much more than I had intended. 

I think this will be one of the pieces I work on over the winter.

But back to what I'm working on right now...

I am working on "The Boy" again.  

You may remember that I started him early in the summer and then sort of abandoned him when I lost the "feeling".  He was kind of a long shot anyway, as he was never a purposeful piece and came about as a result of a series of accidents, anyway.

I had been working on a piece for a show about Oseola McCarty for a call for entry - and I had a very clear idea about what it was I wanted to do. 

But then the problems started. I pieced, quilted and painted THREE backgrounds (all 65" by 40") and never actually came up with one that worked for my original concept.

When I got to this point, I thought I was done, but as I looked at it, I realized that I didn't like the total sky  background. It was lifeless, and oddly drab in a way.  

Unfortunate in many ways, because I've already made up ten of these backgrounds in preparation for more birds. Alas - they'll have to be used for something else. But in the meantime, this bird needed to be cut out and put on a different background.

Shall we audition some? 

I always start with a reference photo, and I always write the photographer and ask for permission*. 

In this case, the photographer did not give me permission (the first time that happened), so I am using the branch in the photo, but have put the bird in a different position - the head still in profile, but now we'll be looking at the bird from the back and to the side - rather than a straight on front view.