Happy 4th everyone! I spent Friday night and most of Saturday at my parent’s cabin with my family.  They’re still staying out there until Monday, but I can only take so much of the woods (I’m more of a beach/ocean person) and I needed a little alone time, too, so I came back after one night.  Plus a three day weekend?  I needed one of those to work on some paintings! 




Here’s the latest update on the cat painting.  I’ve filled in the fur on the body – though I have to make a few corrections – and have done a little over half of her face.  So much fur.  LOL!  I finally had to step away to give myself a break and let some of the paint dry.  I’ll be working on it some more tomorrow.  I’m hoping to finish up the fur.  Then I get to tackle the bird and feeder.  I’m not happy with how they look.

In the meantime, I’ve dragged out my unfinished acrylic owl painting to work on for the rest of the night.  It’ll be a fun one to work on and a nice break from trying to do a realistic animal. 

So… I’m a few days late.  I pushed myself a little too far last week and my brain and body just shut down this weekend.  I needed a long time out to regroup.



Friday night was a rough night.  Mentally I was working against myself, overthinking things, doubting myself and any ability I might have, comparing myself to others (unfavorably, of course) and such.  It was a hard night of painting.  The painting wasn’t going well, the colors just weren’t right.   At one point, Linda and I were talking and studying the painting and determined that the values of the cat weren’t right.  Which mean I got to paint the undercoat all over again.  But that was a good thing as it corrected something that needed to be fixed and I loosened up a bit in the process.  The class ended on a positive note with me feeling much more confident than I had felt at the beginning.  And yes, that’s yours truly posing alongside her creation.    (Picture is courtesy of Kristen, another student in the class.)



I learned so much from this class.  It was a good way to throw myself back into the oil painting again.  And this time I really have vowed not to let it go.  While I didn’t work on the cat this weekend, I forced myself to sit down tonight and mix up some paint colors.  Then a little while later, after an impromptu visit from a friend, I sat myself down to start the process of painting in the fur.  Linda warned us it would look and feel weird at first, but that as we continued the process, we would see it start to come together.  Well, Penny is looking a little weird right now.  *g*  I can see a few spots where the values aren’t quite right and will fix that tomorrow.  However, you can’t see it in the picture (sorry for the lousy iPhone pictures – I can’t find my camera) but on the right side in the dark patch of fur on her body, I started to fill in the hair a bit and I can see how it will come together.

I’m pushing myself to keep at it,  to keep learning and playing and experimenting.  It’s just little moments of fighting the fear of messing up or making a horrible mistake or just painting bad and doing it anyway. 

Day three of pet portrait class and we’re now more than halfway through.  Despite the killer schedule of having class every night, I could really use another week at least!  Thank God Linda welcomes us emailing her with pictures if we get stuck or have a question.  Since I’m hoping to donate this painting for a silent charity auction later this fall, I will totally be taking her up on that!  There’s no way I’ll be able to finish this painting by the end of class on Friday, but I hope to make great progress the next two days.

Today she went over a little bit about colors then we all got busy working on the paintings.  I had experimented with mixing up some colors last night to help speed things up tonight and boy, was that a good thing!  I got a nice gray mixed up for the undercoat and started blocking in the cat.  I hate this part.  This is the part where I want to give up and walk away from the painting. But I know if I stick with it, I’ll get past this part and it’ll get better.

Really doesn’t help that I hadn’t painted with oils for around 7 or 8 months before taking this class.  I will NEVER go that long again.  This is my new resolution and I will be sticking with it.  I take a class and make great progress, then once the class is over with, I stop doing it.  Then when I take the next class, I feel like I’ve been thrown in the deep end and I’m struggling to get back to where I was before.  Then just when I’m feeling like I’m getting there, the class is through and again, I stop.  I’ve done this with various things through my life when it comes to art and slowly, I’m starting to mend my ways.



Anyway, I persevered and kept on painting and finally, I started to get to a place where it began to actually resemble the cat.  That was a good moment!  I started to feel hope that it might all turn out well in the end.  I finally did finish the undercoat of the cat.  I can spot a few areas that aren’t quite right, but overall, she’s looking so much better than I thought she would be!

Towards the end of class I started to move on and got the base of the bird feeder blocked in.  I have to look for a few reference photos for the bird so that I can be prepared to work on him.  I think that blocking in the rest of the painting will go much faster, especially since it’s not as detailed as the cat itself and then I can get started on adding the layers of fur to her.

Anyway, now I’m off to go finish up a few things and hopefully be in bed by midnight.  As much as I would love another week of this, I really need sleep!  So thankful I was able to take this class.  I always learn so much in Linda’s workshops.

Be back again tomorrow night!

Back from class and ready for bed.    But before I hit the sack, I wanted to get this written and posted.
Headed to class again, this time prepared to sketch the cat onto the gessobord. Got there a bit early, chatted with folks, looked at their sketches, then started to finish up mine.

The picture I”m using of Penny was taken when she was sitting on the window sill.  I was driving home last night, thinking of how she used to jump up there, then sit and chatter at the birds on the feeder outside.  It made me laugh every time.  Then it occurred to me that I could add a bird on a feeder in the upper left corner, along with a bird peeking it’s head out.  So I added that to the sketch and decided to use that.  I wanted to do something that would reveal part of Penny’s personality and that reminded me of her.  Perfect!

While we worked on sketches, Linda got things set up for the talk/demonstration.  Once she was ready, we gathered ’round and listened hard.  A lot I was already familiar with, but it never hurts to get a refresher course.  Plus sometimes you catch something that you missed last time and that was the case today.



She went over a little color theory, strategies for deciding how to attack the painting, and demonstrated by sketching on her canvas, then she sent us all off to do it ourselves.  I cleaned up the sketch and then mixed up my paints.  Opened up the odorless mineral spirits and dished out some Neo Megilp.  (The strangest product name I have ever heard.  I want to know how they came up with it and what possessed them to use it!)  Then I got to work.

I switched between the sketch and the black and white photo.  I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that all the measurements worked out and tried to get the best resemblance possible.  The better a job I do today, the less mistakes to fix and the less reworking to do later in the process.



I will admit that I dragged my feet a little.  I was nervous about figuring out the colors and actually taking that next step, so I hemmed and hawed.  I fiddled around and thought a lot about the color scheme I was going to use.  Then suddenly it was 8:45 and since class got out at 9:00, well, why bother.  I excel at this kind of stuff, can you tell??  I ended up stopping at this point, rather pleased with the results, but wishing I had pushed myself to go a little further.  Only three more sessions left. 


All the way home, I kept thinking that I really should break out the paints and mess around with the paints tonight.  Try out a few color combos and see what works and what doesn’t.  I really didn’t want to, but I decided to make up for my earlier procrastination and save myself some time in tomorrow’s class.



I got home, whipped out the paints and got to work.  I knew I wanted to go with the complimentary color scheme of blue and orange, but the colors just weren’t turning out right.  I figured out the orangey brownish color of her fur early on, but the gray was escaping me.  But as I continued to work, I started remembering bits and pieces of things I had learned before and after 45 minutes, I found the color combinations that would work for a good part of the painting.  Unfortunately, by the time I found these color combos, the canvas board I had been using to test them was nearly full.  But I dabbed some of the correct colors on there and made a couple of notes.

I’m so very thankful that I sat down to work this out tonight.  This way tomorrow I can get to class, immediately whip up the colors I need and not have to waste valuable class time struggling to get the shades right.  I”m so looking forward to working on this painting tomorrow.

I was speaking to Linda about being asked to donate a painting for the Mayor’s Charity Ball this fall and she suggested that I could donate this one.  It hadn’t occurred to me to do that, but I’m keeping it in mind.  If this painting turns out, I just may set it aside and save it.  It would be wonderful to have that project done and not hanging over my head.

Coming tomorrow will be the recap of the third day and more pictures!