Pinning the Critter

Please excuse the horrific job of highlighting the “parts” of the critter that I saw in Richard’s painting yesterday. In what I do with my photography, I seldom EVER do anything in photo manipulation software other than “crop” and occasionally “adjust lighting.” Oh, there is the resizing I do to post onto Photobucket or prepare for the blog.

Since I do little in the way of photo manipulation, I’m not really comfortable with working with some of the software. I have three “packages” that I use. My first one was a “HOKEY” package called Picture Easy that came with my first digital camera, the Kodak DC260. It is so limited, that the only reason I still keep it around is because it works the best as a slideshow viewer.

My second one that I principally use is Microsoft’s Digital Image Pro 7, in which I work primarily with non-subtle things like resizing, cropping, and lightening. The last one I got simply because the last photo printer that I had, an Epson printer capable of printing out 13” x 19” photos, wouldn’t work with either the Picture Easy or the Microsoft Digital Image Pro 7. The last one I got is Photoshop Elements. (Incidentally, Picture Easy hasn’t been around in ages and Microsoft’s has been discontinued for some time as well.)

Now, to the painting entitled, “Deep in the Woods.” (Incidentally, it has been reworked by Richard, so as an actual painting on canvas, the original no longer exists as we will see it here.) It is with Richard’s permission that I am posting the original photo image and the details of the critter on my blog. Normally, I would have simply linked to his work, but since I’m highlighting the parts of the “critter”, I’ll have to do that here.

First of all, here is the original photo image. It was in the “far” image, meaning not clicked on and linked to, that I first saw the critter. I have since determined that Richard has created a “hybrid” animal as it sort of looks like a donkey, but with the muzzle and mouth of a wolf-like creature. (Man, what an imagination…..)

The following is the cropped out critter, so in the original image, look at the base of the left, center tree that is brown in color.

This next image has arrows to point out the top and bottom of the animal’s body.

Next, and much harder to make out, are what looks like the ears of a donkey.

Here is the eye that I referred to in my original posting about this painting.

This one is more of a view of the side of the head, with the eye as a part of it. Perhaps this part will allow a better perspective of the eye within the head.

Continuing forward on the critter, the arrow here points to the muzzle and the mouth of the animal.

And last, the two downward strokes that made up the thin legs at the rear of the animal.

Richard has been kidding me with a reference that it was too bad that I didn’t see the Virgin Mary so that he could pop that painting out on E-bay and make enough to buy his dream RV. Well, sorry, but I have no idea what the Virgin Mary would look like, so I obviously couldn’t see her in a painting.

However, since Richard created this “hybrid” critter but has since covered it over in his painting, he’ll never make a dime on the unlikely animal that he originally created. I’m sure that it could have been a starring character in a movie as well.

I was almost willing to offer money for the painting as it originally was done. Oh, well. Live and learn. This is why I seldom ever delete one of my photos. One never knows when a second look will reveal a beauty not seen before. It is not an unusual thing to happen. But then, it is easy to store digital images. Not so original paintings.

Thanks for the fun, Richard.  I’ve enjoyed this exchange.  What I am sorry for is that my question led you to rework your painting.  I may never comment again with the fear that you will alter and spoil a perfectly excellent painting.