Geese At The Fair

I've made it past phase one of the judging for the MN State Fair Fine Arts competition with my piece "Geese At The Fair!"

Oil pastel, 24" x 12".

Phase two judging takes place the last weekend of July.

Update!  "Geese At The Fair" will be on display at the fair!  You can see it at the Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Building (corner of Randall and Cosgrove) August 23rd through Labor Day.

Update II, Electric Boogaloo!   "Geese At The Fair" has been sold!  Okay, so it didn't win any awards, but I'm still thrilled my work has found a good home.  

And I'll get around to a truly new post one of these days, I promise...

Geese at the Fair

Here it is so far...I think I'll leave out the bars.  I need to leave it alone for a bit, but it's pretty much done.

"Geese at the Fair," 24" x 12", oil pastel.

Geese at the Fair: WIP

I was hoping to have more progress completed on this piece by now, but I'm fighting a nasty chest cold.  Oh well...here it is, so far.

Geese at the Fair: WIP

I've started work on my submission for this year's State Fair Fine Arts competition.  I'm working from a reference photo I took a few years back.  I saw some geese in a cage in the back of a truck, and I got a few pictures.  It just struck me kind of funny, to see a bunch of geese in a truck...maybe you had to be there.  Anyway, here's the reference photo:

And here's phase one of my piece:

I did a bit of "underpainting" with dry pastels sprayed heavily with fixative, then blended a bit with a brush.

I omitted some of the geese in the photo to simplify the composition.  I still haven't decided if I'll include the cage bars or not...if I do, it will be at the very end...and I may shift them so they don't intersect with goose eyeballs so much!