Day Four - 30 Paintings in 30 Days

Since I've been spending so much time each day painting for this 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge, I thought I would use one of several tiny canvases I've had stashed in my studio for ages.  Small canvas, not too much time, right?  Wrong.  And I learned a lesson today - I need to practice more from life.  90 percent of my paintings are from photos.  Today's painting is from life.  The subject is a small cast iron dog - a terrier of some sort - that I've grown rather attached to and have been imagining painting in different scenes.  I placed him on my drafting table and moved my light around until I got an interesting shadow.  But then.... I had a really hard time getting that little still life onto my canvas.  Sketch, erase, sketch again, erase.  And then painting with a small brush, well, I didn't save much time.  And I'm not sure I really am happy with this little painting and I may just have to go back into it and work on it some more. It's on a canvas that is 3" x 3" and painted with water-mixable oils (Winsor & Newton Artisan).  



All in all, I'm very glad to have learned that I need to paint more from life.  Now I'm going to have to start looking for little animals statues to paint!

Thanks for stopping by!

susan
www.susangarriques.com
susan@susangarriques.com

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