Odin: My Welsh Terrier

Odin was born on December 12, 2010 in a lovely house up in Princeton, California. :) My boyfriend and I traveled 4 hours to pick him up and my little family has been together for about a year now. Ever since he was a little pup he always had these deep inquisitive eyes, so that was one of the most important things to paint. You could just see his natural curiosity for everything through his eyes. He has this habit of just staring at you, whether you're asleep, getting ready for the day, or just laying down...he'll just sit sometimes and stare. I often wonder what in the world he could be thinking of.

This painting was a wonderful request from my boyfriend. I hesitated at first because I knew I had a hard time drawing animals, but I thought hey what's the worst that could happen? I could end up wasting a perfectly good canvas but how will I ever learn if I don't try? So I went for it! :) I first sketched out a rough picture onto the canvas with my handy dandy pencil then proceeded to just go with the flow! I opted to go without a background so that I could stencil in his name/meaning on the top/side in the future. 

This painting took about 3 hours (I'm very meticulous haha) but a lot of the time went into the blending of the colors. I don't have the specific shades of brown that I needed so I had to go through the trial and error of mixing paint. I need to work on my color theory :) Also the hardest part, the eyes, took me quite awhile since it was such a vital part of the painting.

Anyways, hopefully I'm improving! :) One step at a time!

 

Just a little more until spring time

I love spring! I love the blooming flowers, the clear air, the comfortable temperature! I do have allergies though :( so that's a bummer, but I won't let that get in the way of enjoying the most beautiful season :)

We had a sneak peek of spring last week in California when the temperatures reached to a cool and sunny high 70s. I actually made it to the beach and it felt wonderful!

I made this painting last week or so to celebrate the one step closer to capris and bright colors ;] It was quite a tedious job to paint each flower. I started with a pink base, then added white on top, then a darker pink for the filaments then yellow for the anthers (sorry had to biological there :) haha) A couple of the larger flowers have more detailing than others because it's hard to get really small with the brushes I have. Since the canvas board is pretty small already... I'm thinking of starting to use larger canvases so that I can get into more detailing :) I think I'm ready!