Gypsy

When I took a "blog" break back in... when?.... August?..., I certainly didn't think that it would be several months long. Most embarrassing, I can't even say where the time went. There were days in the garden, and weeks of vacation, a workshop on writing an artist's statement and a three day plein air workshop. I've been painting, not as much as I'd like, and more landscapes than animals. I want to be able to add more landscapes into my animal paintings, rather than just faces (which I do love doing!). For the past two years, I've painted lots and lots of landscapes. I've read I need to paint 100 paintings to learn. Not sure I've completed 100 yet, but the last few landscapes are looking pretty good. As a result of the artist's statement workshop, I've been thinking more about the words that describe my art. And one thing I found out in all that "thinking" is that when one of my paintings "makes my heart sing", I know it is a good painting. And okay to show to the world.

And that leads me to Gypsy. After so many landscapes, my fingers were itching to create another dog portrait. Gypsy was a stray and part of FiFi's Friends for a while. She's gone to a forever home now. I've painted her with the intention of entering her in the upcoming Canine Art Guild' Helping Paws exhibit. This is the online exhibit featuring works from fabulous artists from all over the world. Best of all, this is the show that each artist partners with a shelter or rescue and donates a portion of sales to that rescue. In addition, the People's Choice award is given entirely to the shelter associated with the winning painting. I'll be sure to let you know when the show opens (another month or so, I think).

Thanks for stopping by. I'm glad you were here. And I'll be back next week.

susan
susan@susangarriques.com
www.susangarriques.com