610 Wild Life

One of my  very favourite memories... Actually, this painting is a contradiction. My life is anything but wild. On a sunny but bitterly cold Sunday afternoon, I borrowed a few hours to park myself again at the neighbour's fence line trying to get some inspiration. This was my birthday present to myself. The ever faithful family Chesapeake was once again with me and she didn't seem to mind the -13 Celsius temperatures at all. It was cold enough that I left my gloves on and even that was not enough to stave off the frost bite. The Chesapeake pretty much amused herself while I worked with the frozen paint.
The wild life part of the painting is the multitude of fresh tracks that crossed the scene on the north side of the old fence line. There are lots of bunny tracks, some coyotes and probably some opossum tracks left by freezing opossums with frozen tails. I feel sorry for the poor little critters. The rest of the tracks certainly belong to the dog. This fence line must be hopping at night! This is the third of the fence line trilogy. I had better branch off into something else soon.
After a couple of hours of painting, my hands were on the verge of freezing. The painting was virtually done and I bailed to the warm fire of the art room to sign my name. My fingers hurt so! It took about a half hour before the pain left my fingers and an hour before I could even sign my name. That's why it might appear a bit clumsy on the canvas.
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/wild-life-phil-chadwick.html

Merry Christmas... signing off until the New Year :>))