Cozy Chicks 3

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Finished Painting

If you have been following my posts, you know that this painting needed some work. The value contrasts were all the same, shown by looking at the picture here in grayscale. So I had to decide whether to make the chicks, or the background, darker. Since your eye usually goes for the darkest object first, I decided to darken the chicks' feathers. Now this doesn't mean they can't still have highlights; I only need a contrast between various values. I also tried to unify the straw colors more since they were really distracting.

In the end, I think the chicks came out very life-like. I especially like how I captured the one in the back sleeping--that's exactly how a chick sleeps, head dropping down til it hits something! Theoretically, two of these chicks are Buckeye and Midnight, the now "famous" hens in my painting "Best of the Barnyard." But of course, there is actually no way to know what exactly they looked like as babies.