Bullfrogs

This month has been particularly bad for me for painting (although I'm getting lots of illustration done, so that's something).  I eventually resorted to looking over my WIPs and dragged this guy out.  I had started it last year or possibly even the year before.  I had painted the frogs and the rocks, got to the silly day-glow reeds and that's where it languished for months.  Frogs, easy.  Reeds, hard.

I may end up cropping it at some point to remove the reeds.  I'm not too fond of them, but the rock is pretty nice.  That will have to wait until I can access my table saw, though.

Anyway, this was from a photo my husband took at an aquarium while we were on vacation a few years ago.  I think these were American Bullfrogs and man... their terrarium was crawling with crickets and despite the frogs' best efforts they did not manage to eat a single one while we were there.  At one point the frog launched itself towards a cricket, fumbled critically and the cricket ended up crawling on top of the frog's head.  I guess the aquarium caught the dumb ones and the smart ones are still out in the wild.

I enjoyed painting the frogs.  This year I'm going to try and get more photos of animals and maybe include more of them in my landscapes.  I'm really looking forward to plein-air season, but it looks like it's going to arrive late this year.