Plugging Along

Here's a new gouache fox and a ghosty graphite-on-vellum fox.  I painted this new guy over the one I made last week.  I wanted to shift the composition a little, and also amp up the intensity of the image.  The old fox looked too serene for my liking.  The ghosty one will be sewn onto the paper eventually.  I like him where he is for now.  It feels right, but also unexpected and mysterious.
I also started these great big magnolias which I intend to finish tomorrow.  This is the start of another Birdwoman painting/collage.  A paintollage, if you will.  I'm going to make this one a riot of magnolias.  And pigeons.  And women turning into pigeons.......You'll see.  

I haven't worked on this kind of enlarged scale for a long time, so I'm excited to explore the ways it could function here.  Thumbelina, anyone?

Here's a little peek at my working process.  My paper is stretched onto this big board so that it doesn't warp while I'm painting.  Right now I'm working on three different paintings stuck together and all mixed up.  This is what happens when I try to be efficient.  Scary!  But this craziness does seem to be working.  I cannot WAIT to cut everything up so I can finally see how things come together.  I really, really, really can't wait.  

I have a lot of things floating around in my head.  Among them are:

Two different articles from National Geographic about animal cognition and evolution.  (March and April issues respectively).

The Pleiades myth.

Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away.

My Wives of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth paper dolls.  (I finally have a plan for them!)