The Belle of the ball ....

I ran upon a photo of my daughters dog Belle the other day while looking through some photo's for something to paint. Belle looked like a perfect subject, laying so calmly in front of the carpeted stairs. I decided to use a square format so I taped off a 6" x 6" on my canvas. The reference photo is on the left and you can see I must have decided to take some artistic license here with the eyes looking a little strange and the head at more of a tilt than I had intended ... *wink. I didn't use a timer with this painting. At this point I've worked on Belle about 3 hours and I still need to do a little more work, but, I'm not discouraged. I'll do a few more touch ups then I'll go back to my 1 hour paintings.

Toni who has the the most wonderful blog, "A Spattering" ,where she shares so much, has tagged me to tell 5 things that others may not know about me. 

One thing that you may not know is that I love the Northwest. The cold rainy climate like that of the west coast of British Columbia is my kind of place.

#2. For about 8 years I never wanted to learn another medium other than watercolor. Recently I've developed an interest in oil painting.

#3. The majority of the blogs in my favorites has always been oil painting blogs.

#4. I love reading about the impressionists. Their struggles fascinate me.

#5. I have a very hard time throwing out anything, because I always think I'll find some creative way to use it. I usually find some way, but seldom get to the part where I actually do the project.

I think, since I've been tagged before, I won't tag anyone this time. But, if you are reading this, and have not been tagged before, please take the initiative and tell us a few things about yourself.

#11 & 12 1-hour paintings

I started the shell painting, #11 of my 1-hour painting's, using a

shadow box made out of an ordinary cardboad box and used a little desk lamp to shine onto my sea shell. My thought was that this will help show 1/2 of it in light and half in shadow. It may have done just that but as I started painting I once again forgot the steps I promised myself I would take with this painting. #1 draw the shell onto my canvas. #2 Fill in the lightest lights, #3 fill in the darkest darks, #4 establish the major shadows ... Oops, forgot this step! I just kept on painting and couldn't figure out why it wasn't turning out as I expected. I forgot to block in my major shadow shapes.

On #12, although it may not look like much to anyone else, it is a success to me. All I really have been wanting to do with these 1-hour painting is to make sure and BLOCK in the major shapes. Today I think I finally did that. It was a struggle the whole way. I had to remind myself with each brush stroke that all I had to do was block it in ... no added values or colors, just block it in. Success finally came. I blocked everything in. I can't say it was easy, it wasn't. I took me 50 minutes to achieve this. But I did it!