Last Weekend

With a bit of sadness, I realised this is the last weekend I will get to paint here. I have another business trip that will take me away for three weeks. And when I return, I will be readying for removalists. By the time the weekend after my return gets here, the household (and my studio with it) will be all boxed up !

So I decided I had better get moving on a few things I want to start or progress !

First, the white roses. Again, I have an appreciation for the

difficulty of painting white flowers ! Top photo shows my ending progress of the afternoon. Second photo shows where I started today, with Winston atop his cat tree...enjoying painting too, even though it was a dreary rainy day with no sunshine at all. Not sure he understands we won't be doing this here much more ! I think that might make him a bit sad too. I can see how doing this painting could drive me batty, you think you are doing the same thing over and over again ! But on reflection from a greater distance, I do think some progress was made. Subtle, but some better definition has been achieved. Also the color tones are better, more greys and more pale green undertones. Less pinky and peachy ones. It is looking more agreeable to me already.

Then when I lost the good light, I had to stop working on the white roses. I decided to start my first dairy apprentice (young cows) study. This is very much a rough-in sketch in paint. An underpainting to be sure. I did not have time to let the dark paint to dry, and then do the lighter adjacent parts next to it...so, I will work on it tomorrow again and give the shapes better definition and also the boundaries where colour on the cows' eyes and faces changes from dark to light and vice versa. This is a fun painting, very exciting. I intend to do several studies of these charming girls.

More amanha ! (tomorrow, in portuguese).