American Coopworth Sheep Painting on Green background

This is an 11x14x3/4" acrylic painting of an American Coopworth sheep that I just finished.  Hope you like it.  It's looser than I usually paint, and for me, that's really a good thing.  I think I built up the form of the animal better by seeing and "feeling" the weight of the wool on its body.  It was a good painting day.


The American Coopworth sheep is a breed that was introduced into the USA in the 1970's from its original country of New Zealand. Its wool is especially valued by hand-spinners.  This sheep's portrait, my first painting of a sheep, was a pleasure to paint, and I gave it as much body and weight as I could manage on a two-dimensional surface. I'm looking forward to painting more sheep in the next few weeks. 

A change of subject - for today at least

Here's a painting I did last week.  It was enjoyable but difficult at the same time -- I know dogs; I do not know roosters!  But we all need to do something at least a little different from time to time, right?  He's bright and cheery, though; I have him hanging in my kitchen for the time being.  He's going to be for sale in just a few hours at my website, http://www.dottiedracos.com.

And now back to dogs.  I have one promised painting to do, a gift for a dear friend, a chocolate-colored minpin named Kaiser, but I want to do a couple of "warm-up" dog paintings before I get started on it.  It's been a bit too long of a painting break for me.  (I still feel like one of the most fortunate of people to have a career that I love so much!!)

And I hope you all have a great, great 2012.   Happy New Year.

A Great Art Site I've Just Discovered

This is the greatest site I've found in a very, very long time:  http://www.googleartproject.com/.  It allows you to go into art galleries all over the world and see the paintings and cruise around the galleries.  And, believe it or not, you can get up as close and personal as you want with a large number of the paintings.  You can see the brush strokes - clearly!!  You can see, for example, on some of Van Gogh's paintings, even some of his pencil markings.  Not all, just a select number of them - but it's a great select number for sure!

A hint for using the site:  If you're like me and get motion sick at the slightest change in scenery, you can forego going through the galleries themselves and just go straight to the featured paintings in each gallery.  Hope you enjoy it.  Let me know what you think, okay?

Where does the time go!!

Wow, I just looked at my last post date and was shocked!  Where did all that time go?  I just read this morning one of my all-time favorite newsletters, Painters' Keys, by Robert Genn, in which he talked about "seizing the day."  It was a timely and important letter for me, and I hope -- and expect -- I will seize the day more often than I have been doing for the past month.  Of course, life does get in the way - again - but I feel that if I don't paint at least a little every day, I start to lose those "painting brain muscles" and have to build them up again before I can get going at a comfortable pace.  By the way, here's the link to Genn's newsletter if you're interested:  http://clicks.robertgenn.com/seizing-the-day.php.  I very highly recommend it; I've been reading it for years now and find it interesting, inspirational, enjoyable, sometimes very funny,  etc., etc.

I don't know if I've listed all the custom paintings I finished around Holiday time; but if I didn't, I'll try to get them listed in the next few days.  I'm afraid they were all I was doing at that time -- well, that and endlessly it seems hosting various family members who were here, no kidding, for over month.  (Note to said family members:  Yes, I loooooooved your visits and wouldn't trade them for anything, but obviously I didn't work while you were around because I wanted to spend all my time with you!)

So I'm back and re-flexing my painting part of my brain again.  I tried, by the way, a landscape a couple of weeks ago and it was a lot harder than I was expecting it to be.  But, darn it, I am going to conquer landscapes if for no other reason that they're not dog or animal paintings and I sometimes need a break from painting my beloved animals.

Speaking of animals, I sadly must note, too, that we lost one of our boys around mid December.  It was Henry Higgins, our shih tzu.  On the good side, he lived a very long, happy life; we should all be so lucky as he was.  We miss him terribly, though, in spite of his advanced age at death.  In fact, this is the first time I've even been able to talk about him at all.  He was so cute and made us laugh very often.  He was also the laziest dog I've ever had in my life.  No kidding, we had to poke him sometimes in his later years to see if he was still breathing.  He raised the fine art of relaxing to unheard-of astronomically high levels; he was a master relaxer!  May you rest in peace, Higgy.

Oops! I forgot to list my rooster that I painted yesterday!

I don't know what kind of rooster this is.  I only know I found him to be very beautiful.   We used to have chickens (for eggs only) and this one poor, lonely rooster, who had the most sickly-sounding crow that we felt sorry for him.  Plus, we kept him locked out of the hens' house, so he was a pretty sad figure -- but so very beautiful!  Anyway, this is another of my recent non-dog paintings that I wanted to share with you.  Hope you're enjoying my "entr'acte."   I'll be back to dogs before too long.

A Toggenburg Goat! I needed a break from dog paintings for a while!

Okay, I know it's a goat, not a dog!  It's different, but I really needed a break.  It'll be good for me.  With all the commissions I've been doing, I've been working tighter and tighter, and it's not a good direction for me.  This being an artist is always supposed to be fun - because it's what I love doing more than any other "job" I've ever had in my whole life!  I was reaching a point where I dreaded going to work each day.  So it's time for just some fun, loose, no-stress (well, a little bit of stress still), non-threatening types of paintings.  So look for more non-dog paintings for the next week or two.  Then I'll get back with a fresh, clear, eager mind to painting dogs again. 

All you people, by the way, that I met at the Rose City Classic Dog show -- all those of you that either allowed me to photograph your dogs or that sent some of your own dog's photos to me ------ thank you, thank you, thank you!  It was wonderful to meet and talk to you all, and I promise I'll do my very best to get every one of your beloved dogs' paintings done.  So please bear with me while I clear my mind, loosen my brush strokes.  We'll all be happier for the wait, I promise.