Wow, Thank You, and Welcome!

When I found out I was Blogger's Blog of Note yesterday, I was very honored and surprised! I'm sincerely happy and humbled that so many new people have visited my blog, and enjoyed and appreciate my work enough to follow it and/or leave a comment. Thank you all, and welcome!

I'm in the middle of a massive studio cleaning and organizing this week. I'd rather be painting, but it must be done... I do have several new pieces that are almost finished, so look for them in the coming weeks, as well as more updates on Pede's portrait progress.

Since this is just a quick post, I'll leave you with a photo I took last week of a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird at my backyard feeder. The light has to hit their throat feathers just right to be red, otherwise the "ruby" feathers appear black or gold...


Once again, I'm honored to be a Blog of Note. Thank you everyone for the lovely comments, and welcome new readers!

Much love,

Working on Pede's portrait

After the sketch, I toned the canvas with a beautiful warm yellow. Now it's time to start the underpainting, which is not very detailed, but gives me the information to build up details in the layers of paint to come. First I block in the background:

Working on Pede's eyes and ears:

Muzzle and body structure:

I started blocking in her collar and tag, but didn't like the placement of it:


So I moved over to the side a bit. I like this placement a lot better:


And the painting as it stands now. Still lots of work to go, but she's really starting to take shape:


More to come...