I forgot to mention....

A couple of weeks ago, a chapter I belong to had a 5 day seminar with Ros Stallcup. I only went for one class...the Rooster. Of course I painted it on a piece from my stash. I had a hard time with her technique and ended up painting it in my usual form....I always have the best groomed animals and this guy was no exception. By the time I got the body back to my satisfaction, I didn't get to do the tail. It was to be a wispy transparent build up of color. So I thought I would just save it for another day.

A week later I went to paint with some friends; one of them had taken the rooster class. She had finished her piece, worked on it all week,but was not satisfied with it. I took my rooster to finish as she had all the paint colors. My palette was still in good shape but I was being lazy and didn't feel like mixing since I always take more than one project to work on during the day.

Well there is her lovely rooster. Instead of wispy transparent tail feathers, hers is making a big bold, mostly black, statement. She asked what we thought she should do and we all told her. In the meantime I painted my rooster tail and it was looking just as groomed as the rest of him. Sorry..I like it.

Well my friend also has a chicken coop. She told us that her tail was true to her live Rhode Island Reds. We all said yeah yeah yeah..but you still need to lighten the tail up so it doesn't over power the rest. So just to prove her point...she gets this rooster and brings it into the painting studio...sits it on the tables we were using and says ..see...his tail is black. Well the rooster is struting around or at least trying to on the clutter of the tables. The dog decided to bark at it, the cat must have done something too because the next couple of minutes were hilarius and total caos. The poor rooster is stepping into the water buckets and just knocking them sideways...water is going everywhere...he is flapping his wings and I guess he was really upset because he then pooped on a piece someone was painting. Well we were all trying not to laugh but of course how could you keep it in??!! And that ruckus just set him flapping around even more. Poor thing!

My friend finally got the little guy, calmed him down and out he went to explain things to his hens and whoever else in his little kingdom would listen.

Sigh...I think he is still crowing about it!! LOL

Linda