This Site is Getting a Facelift!

WulfWorks.com started out almost two decades ago as my Visionary Art Gallery. For bizarre technical reasons, it had to be reborn as WulfWorks.net. Of course, you can still view my art and order prints there.

When I eventually got this wulfworks.com address back, it went through various incarnations as I got more focused in on my life purpose. It is now my portal site that connects you with all my websites and offerings.

While this blog still includes Art, my soul purpose has a wider scope that also includes Celtic Faery Magic, Shamanic Journeys, Whole Plant Food Nutrition & Law of Attraction Coaching, Writing (novel in progress) and Environmentalism – all of which fit under the umbrella of Activating the New Earth Reality!

My hope is to inspire you (and myself) to repeatedly open your heart and mind to the unfolding reality of harmony, peace and prosperity for all that we call the New Earth.

My first WWIP (Wulfworks work in progress) report!

Here is what I am working on now. I think it is almost finished, but you never know for sure until it’s been around for a while. Sometimes I go back and tweak things months, or even years, later.

 

I’m still getting used to the idea of taking photos of my paintings before they are finished. I missed the first stages of this one.

It started out with just the tree on the right, the sky, and light on the water, with the islands in the distance and a girl sitting under the tree.

It just wasn’t working for me, so I decided to add the crows. I like it this way much better! The big crow is still looking translucent here.

After I blocked in the crows, I decided to remove the girl. She just wasn’t fitting in anymore. (That little crow on the branch will be next to go!)

You can still see a bit of the girl image here, after I put the first layer of gesso over her. I can’t believe that I only recently figured out that I could totally erase elements of my paintings with gesso! It works so much better than trying to cover things with paint.

My Painting Materials

This is an acrylic painting on 16×20 inch canvas. I usually work with acrylics, though I tried water-based oils and oil paint sticks for a few years. It was a fun experiment, but I find that acrylics are much more versatile and enjoyable to work with. Plus, I don’t have to deal with toxic turpentine fumes when cleaning up, which is important to me.

It’s funny – though I never liked painting with watercolors, I use acrylics a lot like watercolors. I have always painted in translucent veils. It’s called indirect painting, where you build the images over time, rather than just plopping them down on the canvas fully formed. I admire painters who can do that, but it’s just not my style.

Getting the Balance Right

Once the girl was fully covered with gesso, I had to create some land for the tree to grow on and match the blues and golds of the water. Then I decided that the little crow on the branch was distracting the focus from the big crow. Though, I like the idea of having 13 crows, so I’ll have to add another one somewhere.

Here I added a couple of layers of gesso to make the little guy disappear.

Now I feel like the overall composition works a lot better. I then spent some more time focusing on the big crow, the obvious star of this particular show.

Here you can see how I added detail to make him more lifelike – or I guess it could be a her. Hard to tell with crows!

Now that the gesso has dried over the little crow, my next step is to recreate the branch and sun on the water where it is all white now. That shouldn’t take too long.

I will sit with it for a few days or weeks to see what else it might need, like a little more definition on the left leg. Otherwise I’m pretty happy with the overall image.

I have always been fascinated with the behavior of crows at sunset, which happens to be my favorite time of day. They come from miles around to roost together in their favorite trees. Their raucous chatter fills the air.

I was hoping to capture something of that feeling in this painting – a feeling of coming together and settling down for the night. It’s a feeling that is both calming and celebratory, a last hurrah before snuggling together in the safety of the high branches.

---