The Unfinished Iguana

Tree8TI was pretty new into art. A trip to the Toronto zoo had resulted in a small pile of reference photographs. I had been working hard on a watercolour painting of an iguana. Green scales, beady eyes, muscular biceps – but for some illusive reason I just could not get it to be a painting that I liked. I changed shapes, and colours, and lines but still I was frustrated. I put it aside for a day, came back and pondered my painting technique – still no inspiration. Then the light went on! I simply don’t like iguanas. Lesson learned? Don’t be lazy about choosing your reference. Make sure you really like that photo if you are going to paint from it.