Just a Buffalo

Remember that song....? I'm Just a Buffalo, and everywhere I go, people know the part I'm playing? It wasn't about buffalo? This guy thinks it was, and don't tell him any different. I don't think you can tell a bull buffalo anything, really. Just stay out of his way. This is an 8X8 soft pastel from a crop I took of a photo available via Flickr Creative Commons license, by member anyjazz65. This is an unframed pastel on Colourfix Suede, which is textured pastel surface on 500 gm hot press watercolor paper, like heavy card stock.
SOLD!

Just a Buffalo

SOLD

Hells no, buffalo!

The photograph for this painting came from photographer Manu Sharma in India. This was during a festival where horses, cattle, and camels were all ornately adorned:

Photo courtesy Manu Sharma Photography

      Here it is in progress:

I realized at this point that the eye was too small and not quite in the right spot.  I wasn't liking the pink tone on the cheek, either. I started to think more about warm and cool colors, and what parts of the buffalo  were warm or cool. I brushed off the check and tried again:

The eye is much better, and the cool pink is gone but this fleshy color isn't quite right either. I am beginning to get frustrated and can feel my inexperience weighing down on me. Then I remembered a handy tip, look at the painting in a mirror and the issues will jump out at you. I do this with my sculpture except I take a photograph and flip the image on my computer. I also looked at a very small version of the  reference  photo, which helps to see the major shapes and colors and not the details that are far to easy to be prematurely focused on. I brushed off the cheek, again, and this time I got it right:

 Festive Buffalo

SOLD

I wasn't so sure about this one, I liked it and my husband liked it, but was it just too weird? I put it up on Facebook and wouldn't you know, someone bought it right away! I think I will do more bovines.