On to the Next Painting - Groundhogs

As a fan of rodents, it's only natural that Groundhog Day would be my favorite holiday, so when the holiday rolled around this year I decided to do a painting in their honor.  Here it is after the first painting session.  It's called "Duchess and her Cubs."

I've been very happy with my method of doing the drawing on Strathmore 400 drawing paper then gluing the drawing to a piece of hardboard.  Covering the drawing with 2 or 3 coats of Liquitex clear gesso makes a great painting surface for the oils I'm now using, and the method has the advantage that I don't have to transfer my drawing.  And...,while I'm drawing I can do as much erasing and re-drawing as I need to - just no cutting and pasting because, as I found out in my "Tea in the Hedge" painting, the edges will show. 

For this painting, I was able to cut a piece of hardboard to exactly fit a vintage oval frame that I had purchased - another advantage of hardboard as a base.

Anyway, here the groundhog family is after the first painting session.  My goal was to simply block in the colors and, in doing so, begin the modeling on Duchess and her cubs.  The family is in front of the opening to their den and, as it turned out, this is about all the painting I did to the den interior except for a bit of detailing and modeling later on.  I'll leave the foreground plants until I'm completely finished with the animals.

I'm inspired by these lovable rodents, also known as marmots or woodchucks.