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I decided to paint on wood panels for this project. The entire picture will be made up of 24 distinct paintings that form one large image when put together into a square. The four centre panels are the smallest (6" x 6"), surrounded by eight 12" x 12" panels, which are in turn surrounded by twelve 18" x 18" pieces. The finished painting will be a 6' x 6' square.

In the photo on the left, you can see that I've started priming the boards with white gesso.

Here I've finished priming all the panels with gesso and have started painting in a background wash of sienna. I chose to paint in a circular motion which resulted in the background looking like the rings of an ancient tree.

I set all the squares on a large sheet of graph paper (on which I had mapped out the various regions of the painting). Using the map as a guide, I blocked out the main segments of the image. The largest segment in the centre represents the creek and creek bed. I splattered various colours of gray paint to create a base of "gravel."

Here is the painting with all the areas mapped out: sky in each of the four corners, the water of the creek in the centre surrounded by the rocky beach, and then an area which eventually will be filled with trees and shrubs.

Now I'm filling in the creek with larger rocks ...

And giving the rocks a more solid form ...

Here's a closer view...

Now that enough of the background detail is in, I can start placing some of the creatures onto the panels. Here is a Western Toad emerging from the water. On the right is a little group of tadpoles.

My intention is to have at least one creature featured in each of the finished panels.

My vision of the final piece is that the squares will be slightly separated so each painting can be seen on its own. I thought I'd better try it out before I finish the piece!

In the right hand corner, I've started painting birch trees into the riparian zone.

Here's a close-up of the tree trunks (and the turkey vulture).

Once the painting is done, the panels will hang vertically on the wall. With the help of my brother-in-law Steve, I built wooden squares to attach to the back of each panel. These squares will help keep the panels from warping and will set them about two inches out from the wall. In this photo, you can see a couple of the finished panels which are raised up above the others. In the distance I'm waiting for the glue to set (the books and concrete blocks are weighting everything down to make sure the backings dry on flat).

Here I have the backings glued onto about half of the panels. I've also finished painting in all the birch trees, as well as some drift wood and a swallowtail butterfly. I've also changed the colour of the sand around the rocks to grey.

Here is a close-up of the corner with the bald eagle.

Here is a close-up of the corner with the red-tailed hawk. In the rocks on the right hand side you can see the toad I painted in earlier.

Here's a little spotted sandpiper walking along the edge of the water.

And here he is again, with our friendly toad in the next panel...

A swallowtail butterfly sunning itself on the sand...

And a very plump robin on worm duty.

Here's what the painting looks like mounted on the wall. It's almost done!

But not quite. With Steve's help, I built a black wall to hang the paintings on (for display at the SER conference). Now that the painting is back in my studio, I've kept the black backdrop. But I still have a bunch of creatures to add before the painting will really truly be finished. Here I'm adding caddis flies to the underwater rocks...

This photo also gives you a sense of the scale of the painting; it's much larger than me!

Well, in the end, my final touches were pretty extensive: a second sandpiper, more caddis flies, tiles with flagging tape and a bunch of insects, a dipper, a goldfinch, a kingfisher, and animal tracks left in the night.