White Poodle, day 8

Back at the gallery today, missed last week because of the weather. (A tiny bit of iciness in the morning, plus no ride, and yes, I'm a wimp!)

Today I focused on getting the colors closer. I did a lot of glazing - using mostly medium and a tiny bit of color, I painted over most of the painting. I glazed the entire dog with some cadmium yellow, which made his fur much warmer and more like the painting. I went over all the trees with a glaze of burnt sienna, green and a little white (white is opaque, so it was not so much a glaze, which is transparent, as a "scumble"), which served the purpose of not only correcting and lightening the color, but smoothing out the "blobbiness" of the trees that I commented on in my last post. I did the same with the light areas of the boat - a scumble of cad yellow with some burnt seinna and white. I also glazed over the sky and cloud with cadmium yellow. It occurred to me the the painting has probably yellowed with age, but now my copy is a bit closer to the original in color. Worked on the water on the right also.

Then I mixed up a very light, warm color and went back into the dog's fur, painting squiggles. I also mixed the blue-gray color that appears between the squiggles, and the warmer dark that appears between other squiggles. So many squiggles... I worked on the head some - softening edges around the mouth and sharpening and defining the eyes more.

I think it's close to being finished, but of course I am still not happy. The shape of the dog's head in the original is more triangular (pointy head) and mine is more rounded. My dog has thinner hindquarters - I will make his rump fluffier next week. Maybe - maybe - I might be near the end.

(click on the images for a larger view)