Smalls_He Really Needed Some Shadows

If you are a painter and haven't done one, you should consider doing a daily painting exercise for a month or even a week.  Its amazing what you will learn.  It is an outstanding push some of us need (me).  We all know practice makes perfect, well at least it helps you improve.  I liked doing Leslie Saeta's January challenge because knowing I would be posting my paintings on her blog mentally held my feet to the fire.  For me, while it was a wonderful exercise to get me painting after the holidays, it also showed me that finishing a painting in only one day will probably never be me.  Hat's off to all you daily painters!  Everyone needs to do what works for them, so maybe even doing 15 paintings in 30 days is a better option for me!  While I was pretty happy with many of the paintings, I find I usually need to be able to put them away and take them out the next day (or later) and look at them with fresh eyes. 

My painting of my niece's dog Smalls was a good example.  The painting just felt flat, but I was off painting another painting the next day so poor ole Smalls was put on a drying rack and not picked back up until yesterday.  As a practice painting he was OK, but looking at him again he was very flat and needed more shadows and a few highlight to give him some dimension.  Plus looking again, I realized his nose was too small.  I'm much happier with my second day of painting on Smalls and I hope Christen is too.  

My January one day try.....

“"Smalls"”

Day 7 "Smalls"

“"Smalls"”

6x6” oil (NFS)

Its so much easier to take a photo of a cute dog or cat when you don't know the owners, then paint it at some later time.  Then its not a portrait, its a cute animal painting because the owner will never see it.  I struggled today trying too hard to get it just right.  I might try attempt to see if I can capture Smalls, after the 30 in 30....

Once again hats off to portrait painters of both 2 legged and 4 legged subjects!  

ART TIP 

Today was also one of those days I seemed to get as much paint on me as on the canvas and Murphy's Oil Soap came to the rescue.  Clothes or brushes... its a great thing to keep in your studio to get the paint off.