"Bo"

8x10 oil on stretched canvas NFS

I painted "Bo" for my son's girlfriend. She wanted to give her dad something special for his birthday, and this was a dog he lost to cancer several years ago. What a sad story, he would take the dog to a clinic hours away every week for chemo treatments, that didn't end up working anyway. Initially she sent me a photo from her cell phone taken of a framed picture of Bo, glass glare and all! I laughed and told her no way could I do him justice without seeing the actual photo or at least a decent scan, so she brought me the photo and here he is! I hope her dad likes it.

The kids are finally all back at school, and I've been working really hard for the past few weeks on my studio that is in the barn. When I started painting, I started this past winter and used the sunporch...my studio in the barn is cold in the winter and also it was filled to the brim with glass fusing equipment and supplies....I tend to be a hoarder when it comes to art supplies so this summer I've slowly been going through my stuff and throwing and giving lots away.....I'm almost 90% there, and I will have a wonderful studio for year-round if I can find an efficient way to heat it! It's approximately 12 feet by 36 feet, insulated with a concrete floor, that will be partially carpeted when I'm finished. Suggestions appreciated if you have them. I tried an Eden pure heater last year, and it did not heat sufficiently.....

Will post pics soon, I've even made a small "gallery" area in the back of the studio to hang my finished pieces....I'm itching to get back to painting all day once this is complete.

Painting Nemo and Paint & Partake

This is a study of Nemo, for a commission for a friend. It's a Labradoodle, and I'm working from a photograph so I thought I would paint a small version first (8x8) and make sure the coloring is true to Nemo....This isn't the photo I will be using for the final, but I thought the way he cocked his head was cute.....I'm glad I did this first, because the compostion is not great, and it needs more contrast. Suggestions? Lighter background perhaps?

Tonight I'm attending an event called Paint and Partake, at the Red Tornado Gallery in Findlay, Ohio, where we will try 4 wines AND paint a masterpiece in 3 short hours, all for the low price of $30. I love events like this that are low in commitment and price, but high in fun!

Complementary Commission

I've been putting off 3 commissions of friends' pets for at least a month now, and since this is already a dreary week with the wintery cold and rain, I figured I may as well go ahead and tackle them....Now I know why I put them off....This is a good lesson for me as well, and it makes me dread the next two a bit (ok, a LOT). In the future, I will insist that I take or approve the reference photo first.....This dog is actually the easiest of the 3 I have to do in regards to reference material....uggg...except for the fact that it is an interior ( I haven't done any interiors yet) and both reference photos she gave me were taken with the light source directly behind the dog, not my favorite composition at all....and then there's all the sports paraphenalia...ugggg...and on top of all that, I'm doing this one for free....uggg. I'll just post the paintings, enough said.....