Sadie - Take 1

The plan is to revisit this, as I do for so many other paintings.  For some reason, the third time works best.  Maybe a forth or fifth time would be even better, but after three tries I'm ready for a new thing to paint.

Here's the first attempt. It's the third time that I've ever tried to paint a dog and, overall, I'm pleased with this.  As I've written before, it's thrilling to capture what I see in either a drawing or painting, even if the end result is not quite what I want. When I keep working at it, it makes me happy to look back and see progress.

Things I like:

• The eyes.  It's surprised me that they are less complicated than cat's eyes. 
• The background.  This is another surprise, since I generally do not like my backgrounds. 
• The nose.  It's better than the value drawing that I did awhile ago.  

On the negative side, there is something really off with the mouth and muzzle.  The face is too dark and the body is too light.  The relative values are off from the picture.  One cause was that it was hard to mix the colors.  It also took me until the end to loosen up.  

I have a painting class with Kat on Wednesday.  I can't wait and hope to learns lots!!!!