I have just finished this commissioned painting of the Gray Tree Frog, Hyla versicolor, resting in a Manitoba Maple stump behind our house in Bishops Mills.
Oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches, this one has been very complex to paint – as Fred said this evening, “like a spilled jig-saw puzzle”. I wanted the frog to blend with the lichened bark as well as showing distinctly against the rich rusty coloured soft rotted wood of the stump, so the conflict is there, accented by the stems of vines and a spiral tendril that actively gestures to the motionless frog.
