Nooks and Crannies

Phew, I had to make my way through plenty of fur, but I finished the watercolour painting of my friend Catherine's dog, Cady. This one took me a little more time than I'd reckoned because I hadn't planned to go so heavy on the detail. I'm painting along and then before I know it the nooks and crannies have sucked me in. I guess I don't put up much of a fight because I enjoy seeing the resulting sense of texture that comes into the painting. And by the by, if you have a pet that you'd like to see captured in a painting or drawing, please feel free to get in touch with me.

Every once in a while, I think it's good to do a "just because" painting, as in a painting you do just because you feel like it, and I feel like doing something in oil. Possibly because I may otherwise forget how to oil paint since I haven't done so for over two years. I'm thinking something that's large and abstracted. The weather is starting to warm up so I'll be able to use a studio space that's detached from my home and is the best place for me to do any oil painting. A curious 21 month old and an oil painting curing in the house strikes me as a terrible combination, and I don't want to test that hypothesis.

Before I go, I thought I'd show the process work for Cady's portrait in sequence. When I first started studying art in university I really disliked doing any preliminary work, the idea being that prelims would somehow deaden the end result (and besides, who wants to do extra work?). One of my professor's chastised this notion and cited Picasso as an artist who did numerous preliminary studies and produced final pieces that are both carefully constructed and appear spontaneously alive. At the time I remember thinking something along the line of "if it's good enough for Picasso..."