A Victorious Day

We recently rescued a puppy from a nearby shelter. He's a beagle mix and his name is Rolo because he has the most beautiful milk chocolate and carmel coloring. And as sweet as Rolo is, and as happy as I am to have him, he's really thrown a wrench into my work schedule lately. He's only 6 months, so he needs a lot of training and near constant supervision. All that said, I've accomplished close to nothing, within the last two weeks, on my current commissions.

Earlier this week, however, I began to see signs of a changing tide...this too shall pass. I began to more fully believe there will soon be a time when Rolo will calm his body down enough to play by himself with his toys without needing my attention, peeing on the floor only 10 minutes after I let him back inside, or chewing up something he's not supposed to.

Today was that day, the first of what I hope to be many days where Rolo and I both had our needs met. It didn't look promising at first–it rained all morning and into the afternoon–but I was determined to get some work done and take enough breaks to help Rolo get his wiggles out and help stimulate his brain so he didn't misbehave too badly.

The day is now coming to a close, and I can say with a happy heart that it was a victorious day. I painted almost the entire day, and it was so nice! The kind of nice day that motivates people to use multiple hashtags to describe it– #doggytrainergetsabreak #paintisnotforpuppies #gettingstuffdone

Let's get to business. What I accomplished today:

I am currently working on a portrait of a young lady, Jami, who passed away from cancer (if I am not mistaken). This portrait will be given to her mother, my client's mother-in-law, who is battling cancer right now as well. The pressure is on with this one, and I pray it turns out well for the sake of Jami's memory and also to bless her mother and family.

This is Jami.

Working on her skin. I use a combination of yellow, red, violet and white for the basic skin tone, the shadows usually either lean olive, violet or red, depending on the area. I recommend not using black for shadows--it just makes the colors dull. [Fun fact, I rarely use black at all, even for black things. I do have a tube of black to use on a rare occasion, but I prefer to use a combination of a deep blue and dark brown, it's pretty close to black but you can still manipulate it to be cool or warm.] Really study the shadows and try to find a familiar color in there. I'll bet you can.

After filling in her eyes and eyebrows, she has really started to look like herself. This photo also shows you how I have been setting up lately. I have my husband's iPad on a music stand next to me while I paint. Using the iPad was a tip I received from Carrie Waller, a watercolorist friend, and has proven very helpful because I can zoom-in to a section to see better detail or to just keep from being distracted by a section I am not working on. This is only as helpful as the quality of the photo, however. This particular photo looks alright from the size seen on the screen, but any closer and it is very fuzzy.  

Pushing and pulling with highlights and shadows until I feel pretty happy with it.

It was getting late, but I was itching to block in her hair in general color areas. I move from left to right mainly as a habit, but also because I am right handed and it is less likely that I will smudge paint.

Continuing on the hair. Blonde hair can be tricky because, depending on the light, the shadows can be very deep–almost black. It really tricks your mind because you wouldn't think of using that deep of a color for hair that in person may be the color of gold, but trust your eye and mix the color you see. I mixed a lot of gray-ish yellows, some deep olives as well as browns and near blacks. 

This is how I left it, on this the evening of my victorious day. I am going to bed feeling satisfied and excited to work more tomorrow–if nothing more pressing arises. Good night.

Thank you, Lord, for this refreshingly productive day!