Progress Photos of a Commissioned Painting

For the first time, I'm showing the progress of a painting I'm doing to others.  I usually don't allow anyone at all even to enter my studio, much less see a painting in progress.  But I think it's finally time to get over my silly fear - after all, we're all going to start afresh starting day-after-tomorrow, January 1.  I'm just getting a bit of a head start on it.   These photos are listed from earliest at the top to the latest at the bottom.  I haven't finished the painting yet, so there will be another small group to follow in the next few days.  (It may be a few because I have a cold coming on.)  The earliest few photos were shot every 1/2 hour (I failed to record the drawing process; it will come the next time I try this progress-project), and then I started shooting every 15 minutes.  I found that I worked a bit more diligently and with greater purpose if I got an update every 15 minutes.  Here goes:

This is Mr. Jake, and I think he's quite handsome.  Again, he'll be finished in just a few more 15-minute segments, but it might be a few days before I can get back to him.  I'm going down fast - ugh!

English Springer Spaniel Portrait

This is Sarah Lucille's portrait.  She's a recent commissioned painting.  It was such a pleasure to paint her portrait, and I thought it would be a big challenge, too, as the painting for me was quite large,   24x36".  But, quite to the contrary, I grabbed my biggest brushes and dived into the painting with gusto and enthusiasm.  As it turned out, this painting was one of those which I swear just painted itself and I just hung onto the brushes and went along for the fun, wild ride!  I'm very happy with the results, and I feel the clients were as well.

I am Alive

Just a quick note to all those who follow me:  I am alive and working really hard.  I do have quite a large number of painting pics to post but am just too busy to do so until after the end of the year.  Hope you all are enjoying this holiday season.  I'm still looking forward to some down time, but it's not going to happen until nearly the end of the year when things finally slow down for me.  But painting is going well (yay!!!!!!), I'm getting a lot, lot more time into painting now that I have my new studio -- with no interruptions - it's a law!