Cairn Heaven

FROM LEFT:  "Cairn Laughter (Jeff)," 6" square and "A Morning Stroll (Jeff)," 5" x 7", each painting a portrait of the million-dollar Cairn Terrier Jeff (so called because of his many vet visits). My client chose "Cairn Laughter," and a regular Dog a Day reader purchased "A Morning Stroll" shortly afterwards. Did you know you too can have preferential purchasing by subscribing to the Painting a Dog a Day newsgroup? Just train your email to fetch the daily paintings, and you'll receive them in your inbox several hours before they get posted to the blog.

As always, inquiries may come to me.

 

True Cairn fans can order a limited edition giclee (digital print) of "Cairn Kisses," the Dog a Day painting from May 12th, 2009. I picked the giclees up at the end of last week and they are beautiful - there's only 25 of them, and when they are gone, they are gone! (Thank you to those who are patiently waiting for me to ship yours - they will go out this coming Monday).

 

The trick with painting wirey and furry dogs is paying attention to the edges. If I were trying to paint every single strand of hair, I'd go crazy. So instead I mass in the bunches of fur, matching my brushwork to the direction of the fur, and starting from the underside/lowest layers and moving upwards to the top wisps.

 

And if you mix your paints so that subsequent pools of color are pulled from prior ones, you can get some gorgeous harmonies happening. (I use a Masterson wet palette which allows me a couple hours of wet time with acrylic paints on the palette, so I can at least mix my colors the same way I might mix or work a palette of oil paint).

 

If you have a minute, check out the Third Dog Blog Carnival, of which Painting a Dog a Day is a part. There's a host of neat canine related sites all under one tent.

 

Thanks as always for looking at and sharing my paintings with your friends and family.

See you tomorrow!

Kim

ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com