From 2005, a gallery stretched painting titled "Bellyrub," starring one of my original studio muses, a rescued and timid calico named Turtledove. I couldn't find a record of how large this piece is, but I honestly didn't dig for that long. I'm guessing it was approximately an 18" x 24" gallery stretched canvas. Continuing yesterday's walk down memory lane , this week I'm sharing old pieces and talking about what I would do differently today. Here is a rather shockingly bad painting, and a few thoughts about how I would improve upon it. But oh boy, does It burn my eyes to look at this one. 1. Can you tell this was a flash photo reference ? Hard shadows that do not indicate a light source, a "hot spot" of white on her belly, large unnatural reflections in her eyes, and no detail/depth in the shadows. And look at how flat the colors are - there is very little modeling inside her markings. 2....