New Piece, But Not Really

The Separation of Heron and Crow II

monotype with mixed media, 9.5 x 8.75 inches

I finished this piece a while back, then totally forgot to post it. This only occurred to me recently (like today). Although I don't like it as well as version I, there are many things I do like about it, and it was lots of fun to do.

In case you're not a long-time reader of my blog, I should probably explain that the 'Heron and Crow' pieces were originally intended to be illustrations for a book I was writing. The writing, however, has proven to be very difficult, and I'm not at all sure that my idea will make a good story in the long run. But I really enjoyed making the original Separation of Heron and Crow, as it's now called, and liked the idea so much I decided to try another one just for fun.


The basic premise of the story was that we need both day and night, dark and light, land and water, etc. - that we need opposites to create a balanced whole. I attempted to express this idea through the overlapping and positive/negative mixing of the black and white birds, who are the main mythical characters in the story.  I thought that one aspect of this piece that lent itself to the theme was the bright background behind the Heron, while the darker background is behind the Crow.

Let me know what you think!