Barnyard Buffet

We all know what a buffet for humans looks like.... but what about a buffet for animals? This was our first assignment in Senior Illustration Studio. We were supposed to make something that could be submitted to an illustration competition hosted in Italy. The prompt was "buffet" and the entries had to be square. I haven't done much with squares in the past... and now I know why. Squares are HARD. I think the composition worked out OK though. I haven't done many things previously that are this complex, so this was a fun challenge. I've been thinking alot lately about how to lead the eye around a composition, my original idea here was to have the viewer move around the painting in a sort of sideways figure 8 pattern.