Pears

Just thought I'd post a better photo of the pear collage...I really enjoy how the colors mingle and blend...and I'll admit that I did eat the setup...we had received a box of gorgeous pears from friends for Christmas and I couldn't resist painting them.

"smushing" technique

This is a demo of a technique we'll call "smushing" for lack of a better explanation. It's simply mopping colors around letting the water do the work for you and giving the mingling of colors time to work before going back in with your brush and making mud. I'm doing this for my PaintFriendsForum for a little monthly blurp I try to do. This is actually the first time I've also tried to put a collage together so this is somewhat of a learning experience for me...we'll see what happens when I click the post. I've also done a step by step of the background and that'll be posted next.

My New Treasure

This is the drop dead gorgeous painting I received from my dear friend, Cindy Agan, from our Artcolony Christmas painting exchange. Each year, we draw names to see who we are sending an original painting to from our little group and this year I hit the jackpot again!! Cindy's painting is just gorgeous and she told me that she worked the red in just for me...I'm a bonafide RED nut and my friends know this to be a real "sickness"...usually, if it doesn't have red in it somewhere I don't like it. I might add that it was sent framed in a beautiful gold frame with a beautiful white embossed mat of tiny leaves...it's just gorgeous and I'm over the moon I love it so. Thanks, Cindy...I can't believe I own a Cindy Agan original!! While in Chicago last summer we all met and played for a week and it was such fun meeting Cindy IRL...

Christmas Kisses

This morning I was looking at my friend Christiane Kingsley's blog and happened to notice that from looking at her blog roll that I hadn't posted anything here in the last 5 weeks. Goodness...Santa isn't going to stop by our house this year if I don't shape my act up. I have been painting, but just small things and the large things I'm working on aren't even in the WIP stage just yet. I guess my life is getting in the way around here.

This was a painting I did a while back for one of our Artcolony challenges that asked for something "green and red"...what else could I come up with other than foil wrapped green and red kisses that would have been any better for Christmas cheer? And, you can bet I ate the setup after clicking that picture...I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to chocolate.

If I don't get anything else posted here (and there is one more painting floating around out there that's a Christmas theme that I can't post yet because it's gone to one of my friends on Painting Friends Forum...and it hasn't arrived yet!) I'll wish everybody a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Here's hoping that you all have wonderful times with family and friends.

Tea for Three

This is a little silver painting demo I have posted on "paintingfriends.com" which came about from a little "blurp" I'd written about silver on that neat forum. Next to painting crystal,glass, and red stuff, I think painting silver and reflective objects would probably be next on my list. It may be my love for detail...who knows? Anyway, jump over to the site and take a peek if you have time. I have this wonderful black teapot and it throws really dramatic colors on anything silver. This is another of those paintings where I must work from a reference photo and really pay attention to saving whites...much like painting crystal.

Red

Here is a really fun painting I've finished as a challenge to a wonderful forum (which I love)...painting friends...where we have one of our artists post a photo every first of the month...we paint it just however we want...and we post on the 20th of the month. It is just the most fun to paint with red...(have I ever mentioned that it's my fav color in watercolor?). Our son's first truck (and boys in Texas have trucks) was a 1951 CandyApple red Ford pickup...this reminded me of him. Couldn't decide what I wanted to do with the background, so I just left it for now.

RainierCherries

This one is going into my "stack of stuff" finished pile this afternoon. There was a bit more to do with the reflections here and there and also finishing the base of the glass since my last post. My "Painting Friends" buddy, Judy Buckingham, from Oregon is a rainiers cherry expert and she tells me that the cherries are not quite this red, but she'll forgive me...after all...they started out as Bings... I love how we artists can change our minds in mid stream. I'm pleased with the clean crystal facets on the glass...it's always fun when you like something you paint.

RaniersWIP

Almost done with this one...but just not quite. Today at art retreat, I worked on the cherries in the bottom, cloth, adjusted values in the glass itself...and still need to put in the stems...then I'll make the final adjustments. This is been a "doosey" painting different colors than what I'm actually looking at. I'm posting the reference photo here so you can see my challenge...it's been fun...but it's been a brain teaser for me.

RaniersWIP

Here is where I am on the cherry painting right now.l I worked a bit at art retreat yesterday, but one of our girls had just come in from her European trip...workshop with KarlynHolman and then meet-up with her church in Israel...we had a good "show and tell" time. Then, we're making our yearly trip to Ruidoso, NM for a week next Wednesday and we had to plan a bit for that. So, my painting time wasn't too long. I'm still having to take lots of "artist's liberties" on this one as my reference photo is not what I drew (bummer) so I've changed lots of colors and shapes. When I get it finished, I'll see if I can post the ref and painting side by side so you can see my challenge.

I always lay a glaze of AJ Gamboge down under anything red to get a glow...when I was shifting colors in the facets I couldn't make up my mind on some colors and values so I decided to go to the bottom and work on the cherries. This is what I seem to do when I want to "put off" making major decisions...ha. Hope to finish this by the weekend.

RainierCherriesWIP

For more than a month now, I've had this cherry and glass painting drawn off and was in the mood to start it. As I started painting the gamboge into the glass there on the right, I realized that I was painting off the wrong reference photograph! And to make things worse, when I left that area, and decided to paint the cherries to get some color in, I forgot to lay a wash of gamboge down on my cherries. Red glows when you put yellow under it...so...I've changed the cherries from Bing's(the really dark reds/burgundy) to Rainiers...and since I don't have the right ref in drawing or color...this one may be a flop. But...somebody told me "it's only paper" so we'll see. Since we're out of cherry season here in Texas at the grocery store, looks like Google will be my new friend as fellow artist Rose Gesford took pity on me and found a site with wonderful colorful photos of the rainiers.

Snowstorm

On a wonderful forum I share with some great artists, PaintingFriends, we have a challenge monthly where we all paint the same reference photo and post it on the 20th of each month. This month's challenge was of a cardinal in snow. My cardinal wasn't exactly "in" snow...I make the mask "snow" on her and obviously all around the painting...went a bit overboard with the masking, but the paint was lots of fun...and isn't what this artist world is all about?

YouTube Crystal Video from Florida

While painting with friends in Florida last month, a video was made of me painting crystal and is now on YouTube...just go there...go to paintingfriends channel...type in "mollie jones crystal" and search and there I am. There is also one of me doing my cactus demo. There are lots of the painting done in progression in short 2 to 8 minute segments. It was really lots of fun doing and was my first adventure with somebody videoing...hope some of you will take a look. Please...no comments about my deep East Texas accent...

Deb's Delight

This wonderful "applitini" (aka martini) is from a final evening dinner we shared while in Florida on my recent visit/painting/bonding adventure with my friends from "paintingfriends" forum. (http://www.paintingfriends.com/). Great bunch of artists and great painters to boot...hope you'll drop in if you have a spare minute.

One of my friends, Deb Townsend from NY, ordered this one and the colors were so marvelous in the restaurant light that we just had to photo it...knowing that somebody would paint it. Well, guess who loves to paint glass and reds? Anyway, I've just posted a WIP paint along on the forum site for anybody who might want to visit the site. Just as soon as I get around to resizing some of my Florida adventure photos, I'm hoping to do a little recap of our wonderful week...just got to find the time.

Bob Hague Demo

You won't hear "loose" too many times when associated with my painting style, but this portrait was really lots of fun...although a bit scarey in execution. Bob Hague is a marvelous portrait artist from the Orlando, Fla. area and did this demo for us during our little Florida adventure. He starts out with strong color and uses a bead of paint/water and just marches right down the elevated page. Wish I could find the photo showing the "mask of Zorro" when he laid the paint on the eye area...nearly had a stroke...but it turned out very luminious in his demo. My painting got a bit muddy in places, but I'm going to try the "bead" technique on some other subjects and see what happens. If you don't go back into the paint after a certain time, it stays really clean. All in all, this was a really fun paint, and all the others turned out good paintings with him at the helm. I was painting two at a time so I would not get into my usual tight mode and this is the one I thought was better...it's rather scarey to use this much strong color on a portrait for me, but after I started to breathe again after laying in the color I got into the swing of things.

Crystal w/Strawberry Demo in Florida

Have been having trouble with Blogger all day, but thought I'd try to post again. Isn't it crazy when you can't even post to your own blog? This is the "class" photo of the artist friends who met in Florida for a fabulous week of painting and friendship. Sure was hard to come back to the real world of 100+ temps here in Texas. Irene even gave us some strong back winds to whip up the surf and the waves were tremendous. We had one with us from SC and she was really watching the Weather Channel closely.

Only one of the artists finished the painting in this post, but wanted to get the whole bunch together for a photo for me. Just loved the teaching part, and every one of them produced marvelous paintings...I'm so proud. Their colors are wonderful...especially painting reds...and, there was no mud (hum...dirty word) at all... Bob Hague, a wonderful portrait artist from the Orlando area did a portrait demo and it was fabulous. His technique scared me to death, but I'm game to try it again for sure...he is a marvelous teacher. I'll post that tomorrow or so when I resize my pics...took so many good ones that it's hard to look through them all and not want to post our adventures. These friends were from a forum that I love...PaintingFriends...check it out when you have spare time... We had demos the first 3 1/2 days so we really pushed to get it all in...and there were so many things we left for our next "paint/vacation" adventure. One of the artists is showing her cactus demo...I didn't get them all together for a group shot of that painting, but hers will show you the first demo.

Florida Trip Demo

Sorry to have been AWOL for this past month. Truth be told, I've completely redone my ancient kitchen...new paint, beadboard siding in the utility room and kitchen, tile blacksplash, replaced electricial plates...the whole enchilata as far as a kitchen "redo". This Texas heat has also thrown me (and some of my local artist friends) into the grand "funk" of the world as this 47 straight days of 100 to 106 degree weather (with no rain in sight) has played with my head.

So, to escape this I'm leaving this Saturday to join a wonderful group of artists I've met on the internet (Painting Friends) for a week of painting, bonding and fun near Clearwater, Florida. Most of the artists have not fooled around with crystal, so I'm going to have them endure a crystal/strawberry demo on one of the days...it's my real passion so we'll see how it goes. There will be around 15 of us I think, and we'll be strolling the sugar sand beaches morning and evening and painting during the day. Doesn't that sound like a wonderful carefree week for artists? We have artists on the forum for Europe and we'll be skyping during the day and wishing they could have joined us. We do have one gal coming from Madrid, Spain...the rest are from all over the US. I'll try to get some photos of the fun posted...I think there will be several laptops there...not from yours truly though...so...will be back in a week if I don't get anything posted.

Suzy Powell's Kohl's Debut

One of my Artcolony artist friends, Suzy Powell, has several of her fabulous torn paper collages offered for sale at Kohl'sDepartmentStores. I dropped by our Kohl's in Tyler and got the manager to snap this photo to send to Suzy. These collages are just one of her many talents as she is also a fabulous watercolorist. She is from a little bitty town waaaaaaay out in West Texas (Plains) which is about 9 miles from the NM border so no telling how the store buyer found her, but we're all very excited for her in this new venture. If you're in a Kohl's...look at their art and home decor section. They also have a TexasBoot that is wonderful, but don't have it out on the floor yet. I just love knowing famous people!!

Henry WIP Continued...

So...here's where I am today. The blue shirt is my preference to the pink one in the ref photo as he's definitely a "boy" boy...and he doesn't like that shirt anyway. This is with one pass on the blue...gotta decide how much darker for that shadow to go, but needed to at least get some basic blue in. I also did a light purple wash over his shadow side of the face and took the sun spot down a bit...it was just too bright. Added some scarlet lake to the jaw in deep shadow...right on the edge...but it doesn't show up in this photo. I do sorta like the way his left shoulder blends into the background and I was going to lighten the background...may just leave it now so I'll keep that lost edge there.

Henry WIP Continued...

Here's where I am today with "Henry". I went into photoshop trying to play with adding more color and taking color out...and I'm leaning toward adding more warmth. Just can't make up my mind how far to take it. It did help a tad to add that background darkness, but I'm thinking I should put the shirt in before fooling with the skin tones any more. Do you think I'm just putting making those decisions off until "tomorrow" (as Scarlet would say)?

Henry WIP

Here's another portrait of one of my darling grandkids...Henry. I thought this was an especially good photo with all the drama of the shadows. I'm having a bit of trouble in deciding what to do with the shadowed side of his face, but will hopefully work it out. I've used yellow ochre/perm rose on the sunlit side, and with a very pale purple glaze and an overlay of yellow ochre/perm rose/burnt sienna for the shadow side...I'm still working out the balance of dark and light. Since I'm really not a portrait painter, this is a real challenge...but...how do we learn if we aren't challenged? I'll try to finish this up tomorrow.

Koi In Color

I've been AWOL for the past few weeks and am trying to get back into the swing of painting almost every day. Just told friends yesterday that I seem to have the "I'll paint tomorrow" syndrome (sorta got that from Scarlet...ha). Anyway, my artist friends on Painting Friends have all done a version of this same photo, or one similar, that one of our contributors (Ann Buckner) posted for us. We've got this little challenge going amongst ourselves to post a painting on the 20th of each month and we're trying to "think outside the box". I'm a dismal failure at that as I'm just so literal with my paintings that I just paint what I see and I usually work from a photograph rather than any plein aire or studio setup on site. Hard as I may try, the loosey goosey painterly technique usually escapes me. I did get rather loose with the water on this one, and it was fun.

Artcolony in Chicago

What a fabulous group of friends I have miracleously wound up with through our Artcolony blog. A group of 10 of us met in Chicago last week for a "reunion" although most of us had never met face to face...only on our blog. It was probably one of the most wonderful weeks of my life (and I'm getting pretty old as of last month...ha). These gals are from Texas, California, Maryland, Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin and Indiana(Texas is always the biggest contributor to most stuff...heehee). We had such a wonderful week of laughing, giggling, sweating, walking, celebrating...the whole "enchilita" as we'd say here in Texas. It would take a book to relive all our "exploits" from learning to ride the mass transit train...the EL...to doing the "highbrow" stuff of enjoying the Art Institute and Cultural Arts Center to enjoying a stroll through the Oak Park, Illinois Farmer's Market. Never saw so many gorgeous peonies (we can't grow them here in Texas...too hot!). Talk about hot! Most of our photos show we ladies "dewing"...that's sweating...as it was probably a record breaking heat wave for the Chicago area. But, we managed. The gals are...starting top of the stairs...Debbie Cannatella, Jane Freeman, Cindy Agan, Kaaren Oreck, Vernita Hoyt Bridges, Janel Belich, Mary Jansen, Ellie Sethman, and me...what a "congo line".

Artcolony in Chicago

This Friday a group of artist friends from Artcolony are going on the most wonderful adventure...10 of us are meeting in Chicago for a week of fun, bonding, and "just whatever comes up". Many have been friends for years through the Artcolony blog, but have never met...some have met a few...but now we will be meeting eachother face to face and we are so excited. I'll be posting some photos (have a new Android phone and it takes the best photos) if some of the gals will show me how...I'm still learning how to use this techie's dream of a phone. We have a full schedule of fun things to do and places to go, but we're mostly looking forward to meeting eachother and the special bonding that we know will take place. So...I'm packed and ready to go, so stay tuned for the adventure.

Blue Stripes

Here is a little painting challenge that has been done for my PaintingFriends group. Each month one of our artists posts a painting that we are to all paint in our own interpretation and post on the 20th of each month on the PF site. It's always amazing and fun to see how we each have our own take on the reference photo. This particular ref photo had turquoise FiestaWare and a cloth with orangy/red stripes that I couldn't make work to save my life. So, I added apples to the bowl, changed the color to white with blue stripes, changed the green in the stripes from Kelly to Sap...and...it turned into a fun and colorful painting.

Isabella

Here is my latest portrait of my little granddaughter, Isabella. She has the longest eyelashes imaginable. Her hair is really a "bird nest" here, but when she piles it up on her head...that's what it looks like to her Grammy. I painted this Friday and matted and swapped out a frame to give to my daughter for Mother's Day...she loved it. (What else could she tell her artist mother?)

Judy's Lilies

One of my PaintingFriends, Judy Buckingham, posted her reference photo on our forum with a question on the shadows and asked some advice about colors. Her lilies were a cool hue like WN yellow or lemon and she wasn't happy with the green/blue/grey shadows she had painted. My suggestion was to try to take the photo to the warm side as there were warm colors in the English daisies, so this was my take on it painted yesterday. I found that WN yellow and gamboge/quin burnt orange/perm red looked awful together...who knew? So, I had to throw the whole thing to the warm side and just go with a cool background. This changed the whole intent of Judy's keeping the cool yellows, so she's going back in with some purples and blues to see what she can do...So, doesn't look like I was of any help...Ha.

strawberry demo

Here is the demo I just finished for my friends on the Painting Friends Forum. We are having a little get-together in August in Florida and we are all really looking forward to the adventure. I'm going to do a crystal demo while there, and this little demo was so some of the ladies could practice on strawberries. I haven't posted the demo we're doing in Florida yet...but just let them in on the secret that there would be strawberries involved.

Spring distractions

Spring is here in East Texas, and what a major distraction from my painting. Thought I'd show you my first peony poppies and amarylsis. I have both red poppies and the regular single lavender poppies (that look like opium poppies..hummmm). Also blooming right now, perennial amarlysis (the old red ones that you have to find at somebody's house and talk them into giving you a start), purple/gold/pink/blue iris, purple verbena, larkspur, gorgeous roses...goodness...there no place much prettier than Texas in the spring if you're an avid gardener. Hopefully, I'll get back to painting next week.

GoldWIP

Second installment of this study trying to get some golds I like. The reflections seem to be the trick with what is bothering me...possibly the contrasts with nothing explaining the reflections, so I laid in (or started on them) a few of the flowers and leaves. Still am not happy with what is going on, but will have to table painting until Monday. My daughter and granddaughter and a friend with her little girl are coming for the weekend...looks like Grammy will be playing with the little ones outside as our weather has been glorious. Both kids are city kids and they love to come to the country. Wish my mother hen who is setting on 8 brown eggs would hatch some peeps while they were here...that would bne too much fun!

GoldWIP

Seems as though it's been forever since I've posted anything...that's because I can't seem to settle in on anything I've painted lately that I liked. Guess it happens to all of us. This is a WIP trying to work out a problem...how do I paint gold and have it look like a gold wine bottle...with bouganvilla flowers as a strong reflection? A friend knows I love to paint reflective objects, and brought this gorgeous bottle (it's the champagne size too)from a recent London trip. I have a basket of bouganvilla with hot pink, coral pink, and gold flowers in the same basket so I set the bottle among the petals and got these wonderful colors reflecting into the gold bottle.

The challenge comes next: When I started drawing off the painting I wanted to do today (this is not the one I'll paint as it'll be half sheet) I realized that I needed to know whether or not I could come up with a gold that worked before I put all the time and effort into a very detailed drawing. The secret for me to successfully paint glass or crystal or reflections is to have a really good drawing down...you can always erase stuff if it's too much detail. At this point, I'm going to have to redraw this posted bottle section and start over...this particular combo of paint doesn't work for me. So, stay tuned...nothing tried is a waste when it comes to watercolor...it's just a learning curve that we all must navigate. Sure wish I had a magic brush...

The Art Colony Blog now on Artist's Magazine Blog!

For several years now I have been fortunate enough to be one of the artists on a wonderful blog...Artcolony. We've been featured on the Artist's Magazine Blog recently and I hope you'll take a look: http://artistsblog.artistsnetwork.com/2011/03/15/ComingTogetherJaneFreemanInHerOwnWords.aspx. There are many exceptional artists, authors, workshop teachers and just really good painters among our members and we are truly a group of great friends. I am very blessed to be counted among these artists.

Artichokes

Finished the artichokes this afternoon so now I'm on to a crystal painting I want to try. This was fun though. Painting with all these pastels and darkening them in kind was rather challenging, but it's always a lesson no matter how many you paint. I have three other reference photos with difference chokes that Karlyn photographed at the market, so I may try another one when I'm at a loss as to something that I'm really wanting to paint. I think we all have these times when we just want to paint something fluff...and this if truly fluff. For Christiane...NO RED.....

Artichokes WIP

This colorful painting of artichokes has been lots of fun. While taking a workshop with Karlyn Holman 3 years ago, she shared some of her photographs from her European teaching jaunts, and this reference was one of four of artichokes that I just loved. This particular one was at a street market in Paris. The pastel colors are actually there in the chokes...and...it's a feast for the eyes while painting. There are lots of edges that will be cleaned up, and several more darker combinations of colors going across the page. This one is quarter sheet, and I'm using so many different colors I won't name them all...just a whole bunch of greens, blues, magentas and pinky yellow hues. I just wonder if they taste like the plain ole green ones we get here in the states?

My painting of Neiman is finished I think, but I'm going to live with it a bit longer before signing...might need just another tweak or two.

More Neiman

So, here's where I am this afternoon. I had hoped to finish her today at art retreat, but we fooled around with a birthday party and other fun stuff so I'll definitely finish tomorrow. I can already see that I will need to do a glaze of quin gold to tone down the bedspread...either all over, or at least beside and behind her. Still having fun painting shapes and not particular designs.

Neiman WIP

Here is Neiman, one of my kitties...undoubtedly the prettiest calico I've ever seen. She is bright orange, bright black, and bright white...if you can call black and white "bright". And she has orange eyes. I'm into this at about the 2 hour stage so there is lots to do and you may have trouble reading the background...it's my RalphLauren black floral bedspread and it repeats Neimans colors beautifully...but it's a really fun paint so far. I'm trying to be looser with this one (not like my crystal) and I think I've used almost everything on my messy palette except green and lemon yellow. Will get back to it tomorrow and hopefully I'll post another progression photo.

Cityscape

Finally finished my cityscape, and finally got a photo straight enough to post. I really enjoyed fooling with all the greys in this. Purposefully I tried not to go into too much detail with the buildings and trim (as is my usual way)and it was really a fun painting. If I do any cityscapes in the future, however...they'll be half sheet as painting building any smaller is somewhat challenging.

Cityscape WIP

The weather is terrible here today so I'm planning to spend the whole day painting. I started this cityscape (my first) yesterday at art retreat and it's from a friend's collection of photographs taken somewhere in Europe. The drawing is rather messy and once posted looks a bit crooked, but I though I'd show you where I am with it now. Lots of glazing yet to do and just the basic work there on the left side. I started at the bottom (which I've never done) as I needed to establish my darks before painting the buildings. The reference actually had lots of people in the street scene, but I didn't want to paint people so I used my artistic license (that Paul Jackson gave me during a workshop) and took them out. Hopefully I'll get this finished this afternoon...it's quarter sheet size and not really that easy to paint the detail when it's small like this. Next time I'll paint any cityscape in the half sheet size...good lesson learned.

The Sunshine Plate

My artist friend from the UK, Pat Elliott, gave me this very appropriate name for my painting. Many thanks to her as my mind is frozen from all this cold weather and I couldn't come up with anything I liked. As you can see, I completely eliminated the banana nub and thanks to the miracle of aliz crimson and permenant red the whole orb was lifted out and painted over and it just looks like a dark area of the apple now. Just love transparent paints. All this red and yellow make me happy...and I do hope it carries over as we're supposed to get snow tonight and all day tomorrow. Ah, Texas weather!!!

Unnamed WIP

Since Texas is shivering under this cold artist blast, I decided to paint something red to try to warm up...doesn't work! I'm so aware of my artist friends in Minnesota and Chicago right now as they fight this stuff all the time. It was 15 here this morning and Texas's electricity company is doing rolling blackouts every hour or so in hopes that the whole system won't crash. Thank goodness for our fireplace and WalMart sweat suits! Sure is good soup weather though.

My idea for this little setup was to use my new square red floral plates, but they don't show all that much...I finally showed my husband the whole set (they've been in the old studio for the last 6 months and I was waiting for spring to change out...hope we can get used to square plates). Anyway, I drew this off yesterday and have painted this far today in between warming my hands at the fireplace. There is still much to do...shadows, finishing the apples (as one is still in the yellow stage), adjusting values...you know the drill. This is quarter sheet in size. Hope everybody is staying warm....

Sunshine Girl

This is another portrait of my granddaughter Isabella and my object with this one was to see how far I could push reds. My refererence photo is of her sitting in one of my yellow rocking chairs on the back patio...and she is literally "sitting in the sun". If I'm honest, I must admit that I used too much aliz crimson on her right cheek and couldn't scrub it out so I had to go deeper and deeper with the reds. But, she was in bright direct light...that's my excuse. This will probably be my last attempt at portraits for a while though as I seem to be getting a heavier and heavier hand...so...back to crystal and glass for a while. Although I am not happy with this one, I do believe that everything we paint is a learning lesson and when we start something...we should finish it.

DonkeyWIP

Why in the world I chose to paint a donkey as my first painting of the new year is really beyond me! Yesterday when we met for art retreat, I didn't have anything at all in mind and found a black/white photo of this little guy in our "stack of stuff". The only area I think I'm finished with is the eye and fur in that general area...need to knock down that masked fur to the left of his eye. I started with the blue on the right ear and intended to paint a rather funky portrait using blues, reds, golds, purples (ala Kay Smith color selections), but my realism got in the way. When my leaf raking chores are finished this afternoon (we have glorious sunshine here again in Texas), I'll try to get back here and finish. This was a 2 hour challenge thingie (where you stop and evaluate after 2 hours of straight painting...photograph it...post it...then get back to it and finish, promising to take another finished photo and posting that). This is one of the fun things we do our our PaintersFriendsForum and it's always a fun challenge. This is a half sheet in size...hence my being able to paint it so quickly (when I paint on the large size, I don't get so bogged down with details...unless, of course...it's crystal.