Yellow or Orange Tabby Cat Portrait

This is a custom cat painting I did recently.  I'm quite happy with it and am feeling that I'm growing again as a painter.  For years, even, I thought I wasn't making any progress in my painting abilities.  Now, I feel I'm understanding and seeing my subjects better all the time.  It's a good feeling.

Obviously, the original has already been sold, but prints are available.

I also recently finished a rough-coated collie painting and another cat painting -- a black and white one this time.  I'll try to upload them later this week.

With my ceramics work as well as my paintings, I've been really busy lately.  It can become overwhelming, but I'm learning to look at one day at a time and just keep working, and work does eventually pay off!

Curious Grey Horse, Blue Sky Background

This is a horse painting I just finished, an acrylic painting on a 24x30x2" gallery-wrapped canvas.  Prints and the original are for sale.

As I've probably stated before, I'm doing more and more farm animal paintings and am loving learning new animal anatomy.  Hope you like it!

Checkers the Rooster!

This is one of my daughter's chickens, an adorable rooster that my granddaughter named "Checkers" for some unknown reason.  But Checkers it is!  I spent around an hour with him last week, taking photos and making sketches, and here's the painting that resulted from our little visit.  It's an acrylic painting on a stretched 16x20x3/4" canvas and is for sale on Etsy, along with prints of the painting.

I just love how feisty he is, and I think I may have to do at least one more painting of him.

I also redid the sunflower painting again, and I really like it better now.   It's much happier looking!

A couple more recent paintings I've done: A small rooster portrait and a fun sunflowers painting

 This little rooster painting is on an 8x10" canvas board and is one of several rooster paintings I'm doing at this time (the others are larger).  As usual, I'm selling both the original and prints of it.

This painting I did for myself because I love growing sunflowers -- and seeing them so much.  I become happier just looking at them, whether they're in my garden or on a wall in my house.  This one is currently hanging on my own kitchen wall.  However, if someone really wants the painting and buys it, I can, of course, do another sunflower painting for myself  : ) .  The original acrylic painting is a 24x36x1.5"  stretched canvas.  Prints are available as well.

I'm Taking a Few Orders for Commissioned Paintings this Summer

I've decided to take just a few orders this summer for commissioned paintings.  If you're interested, you can click on my page at the top right of my blog to get all the information you should need to get the process started.  Here's a commissioned painting I just finished:


This painting (16x20 on stretched canvas, acrylic) of a sweet pit bull was done for a long-time customer, and I enjoyed painting her so much that that's what helped me decide to take a few commissions.  I probably won't take any after the month of September because I don't want to get backed up with orders around the end-of-year holiday rush.

Guernsey girl on soft, light blue background

This is a beautiful Guernsey cow painting I just finished.  I really like it and have it hanging in my kitchen until it sells.  I have the original, an acrylic painting on 16x20x3/4" stretched canvas for sale (as well as prints of it) in my Etsy shop.

I've been seeing a lot of farm animal art showing up in very modern kitchens lately, and I really like the look, so I'm going to continue with it for a while.  Plus, I just love painting farm animals, too, so that helps a lot.

I just took quite a few photos of some of our own "chickens" a few days ago and will be painting at least one of them, one of the "chickens" who turned out to be a rooster!  He's quite saucy and sassy, and the photos I took just scream to be painted.

I'm also doing just a few custom paintings for a while, too; so if you're interested in getting in before I take another break, now is the time.  I'll probably stop taking custom orders around early September.  There's a page here that gives you all the particulars if you're interested.

I'll also be listing some in-progress paintings I've been working on lately, too, including the completed ones as soon as I get around to finishing them.  I've got so much going on lately that it's time to start finishing up a few projects.                                                                                                                                                        

This is the same cow but with white markings on her back.

Really enjoying the ceramic clay work after a long break

 These are just a few of the pieces I've been making lately.  The bottom photo is a sushi dish set that I made for my son-in-law for his birthday -- with home-made sushi on them, of course!!  I'll be making custom sushi sets before long and will list them in my Etsy shop, https://www.etsy.com/shop/DottieDracos?ref=hdr_shop_menu
(Hope that link works!)

I've also been making a few larger animal sculptures, too.  I've done a dog, which is about a foot-or-more tall, a cat, which is around 10 inches tall, and I'm working on a larger dog, which is around 1 1/2 feet tall.  They're a bit slow-going, though, because I'm out of practice at sculpting -- but getting better!

I'm missing painting quite a lot lately, too, so I'll try to do that as soon as I get a few more ceramic pieces done.

I tried retiring for a while some months back, but I just enjoy all my art"work" too much to think of quitting -- but I have to pay for my materials and new toys, too, so I have to keep making at least enough to cover my costs.  I'm even thinking about getting a new potter's wheel, too.  I haven't done that in forever!  (except for a few hours I have spent at one of the art galleries here in town where I can rent time on a wheel)  Life is good.

Another Sweet Jersey Cow, this time a young one

A very pretty little Jersey cow that I met on one of my photo-shooting trips to a small dairy farm in Oregon.  She's quite young but was out with the older cows in the field.

As usual, the original and the prints are listed in my Etsy shop.  Her name is Lark, by the way; she had a name tag on.