White Poodle, day 2

Circumstances have kept me away for a few weeks, but today I returned to the NGA for Day 2 of the White Poodle painting.

I concentrated on the trees in the background - darkening them and adjusting the color. I worked for about two hours, then went to lunch.

After lunch (which was a long one, because I was catching up with my copyist friend Helen!) I worked on the dog... putting in the underpainting of the fur. I'm trying to get it as close to the value and color of the painting as I can. The tiny squiggles of light fur stand out because of the darkness of the negative space around them. I'm building this painting up with thin coats of glazes, which is not how I normally paint. I think when I put the squiggly fur in, I'll have to paint around them with the darker colors at the same time, but at least I'll have a base layer to start from. I only worked about 1/2 hour after lunch, but next week I will continue, and will probably paint everything over again.