The Finished Spring Fox Painting

Here's the finished Spring Fox painting.  I'm happy with the way it turned out despite all the difficulties I encountered along the way.

For this third and final painting session I concentrated on the foxes and the grasses around them.  My sister told me that she thinks the foxes are well done, especially the modeling on the faces.  I think I could have done better with this painting though.

Nearly every time I do a painting with animals in a landscape I think about how much I need to improve my landscape painting skills.  Perhaps I should take a class.  Or perhaps I should set myself the task of painting several small landscapes with no animals in them until I get more comfortable with it.

But the lesson that was clear to me - whether or not I will take it to heart remains to be seen - is that I really need to plan my paintings, like I used to do.  I'm now comfortable enough with painting that I can sort of get away with jumping right in with just a simple drawing.  But then I face lots of problems as I go, some of which are very difficult to solve.

Despite all that, this painting is the basis for my spring banner on my Etsy shop and it looks good in that context, so - mission accomplished!