And still more on Cinder

This was my work on Cinder yesterday. Not a lot, I think - it was one of those days when I don't feel sure of my concentration, so I focussed on small, straightforward things. Some of these were filling in her front paws; starting the pink stripe of the blanket; a little more work on a hind paw.

She's reaching the point where I'm starting to be able to envision her finished (sorry, I start referring to the painting as if it's the dog herself), but I have no idea how much longer she'll take. Could be next week; could be three weeks, could be six weeks... More likely still is that with another week or two of work, she'll have reached the point of being "almost finished," which is likely to mean another two or three sessions, doing little fiddling things; sitting and staring at the painting, listening to the feeling of what's right and what's not quite there yet; putting it away, going away for a few days, coming back and looking again; turning my back on it and then whirling around suddenly, trying to take it by surprise (don't laugh, it actually helps). (Of course, it's actually my own vision of it that I'm trying to take by surprise - anything to try to see it afresh.)

More on Cinder

Here's Cinder's progress as of yesterday. I've worked on her face; I'm happy with her developing look; and more of her body is getting smoothed out, and her tail. I have noticed that I really need some orange in her, not just some mixture of earth colors - burnt or raw sienna, yellow ochre, even Indian red - but real, honest to gosh vermilion red plus cadmium yellow, as a base, to get that real warm sunny color on her flank.

I also shifted the color of the condos out the window, from their previous greenish, to more of a gray, and I think the whole scene is looking sunnier - though maybe that's because I shadowed the intersections of the window pane frames...

The Break in the Forest

Here's another painting from my existing body of work: The Break in the Forest. This includes one of the whippets that my daughter and her best friend used to walk - Basil; and an owl; and an almost invisible shimmer in the air. And Basil and the owl are both wearing medicine paint, including a tiny hand print on Basil that indicates the very small size of his rider (it could also mean that he's very large, but I'm arbitrarily saying that's not the case).

This is a watercolor, 14" x 20", and is available for sale, unframed, for $600 plus shipping.

And more on Cinder

Here's how she's looking now. I've done more of her body color, started work on the pillow and her favorite stuffed animal - Foofer - and worked a bit more on the scene outside the window.

It's coming, it's coming... I'm having fun with Foofer. I love including stuffed animals with my real animals!

More on Cinder

I haven't been posting as often as I intended to, but here's the state Cinder's portrait had reached as of a couple of weeks ago. I found myself surprised that Cinder's body color needed to be fairly pinkish - even though I knew my beginning colors were way brighter than they should end up. I painted this color on her body, thinking, "Nah, that can't be right..." Then walked away; and a few days later, just glancing at the painting as I walked by, thought, "Yeah - I think that's going in the right direction, after all!" So it goes...

I also worked on the light and shadow of the window seat, and did some work on the window frames. I'm liking how luminous the shadows are looking.