A Little Closer

Well, I managed to get some work in on this painting tonight, yay! It was a busy day at the barn, what with dealing with what seems like a delayed-reaction flood in the barn (thought I was going to be spared when it stopped raining and all was dry), mucking out as usual, and supervising a couple of horses being reintroduced to turnout after stall rest. I had to make a trip to the grocery store - motivated primarily by the fact that my banking machine is at the grocery store and I had some cheques to deposit...well, that and the anticipation that there would be holiday chocolate on sale! I showed great restraint, I thought, in only purchasing *one* bag of Lindor chocolates at half price. Coincidentally, Haagen-Dazs was also on sale, and it's illegal *not* to buy it under such circumstances, don't you know? Thanks to that and a gift from the most thoughtful of friends of some Green & Black's organic chocolate, I'm well-stocked for a few days, at least!

All I did tonight on this painting was work on blocking in the colour of the dog, and it made all the difference with how I feel about the painting. There is still much work to be done, but as the dog, obviously, is the most important part, working out this first layer of colour was very important. I know I need to sort out values and perspective yet, but my adjustments in those areas will be much easier now. In case you're interested, this is 11 x 14 oil on Raphael linen panel.

Of course, much of the work I did tonight involved the notoriously slow-drying Titanium white, but that won't prevent me from continuing to work on this. The rest of the painting - save for the sky - is dry, so I will be working next on bringing up some of the detail that I've thus far neglected!