When My husband gets an idea in his head, it can be very hard to dislodge it. This morning he had the opportunity to look at the Indigo Bunting painting on line and immediately called me over to say in his usually blunt way, “Why would you do this? It looks like crap!” Well, he said something worse, but not suitable for family consumption.

Now just saying something look bad doesn’t help me. I had to get him to really look again and tell me what, specifically, he found objectionable about the painting. It turned out there was something about the impression of the face like a mask that really bugged him. I admitted that I had worked strictly off the printed photo and not from my iPad as I normally do.

An iPad or electronic screen is lit from behind and often will push through dark areas and provide more detail than a print. In this case, he was right. I reworked the bird’s face, which meant I also had to rework some of its body. What do you think? Is it stronger now?