Or, how I try to fit a day’s worth of art work around everything else going on in my life!

I thought this would be a fun post, so here we go, here’s my Thursday:

4:50 am – Night table alarm goes off for first time, followed by phone alarm 5 minutes later. Alternate snooze between the two alarms so that they go off approximately every 2-8 minutes for the next twenty minutes. 

5:10 am – I’m awake! The dogs look at me like I’m crazy and go back to sleep, taking over my spot in the bed. I clean the house from top to bottom, laundry, Dyson for a bit (there’s no better way to start my morning), pack our breakfasts and lunches, shower and get ready for work. 

Wake the dogs up and force them outside to take care of business. Feed the dogs. 

Out the door! Oh yeah, it snowed. Clean the car then off I go. Wait, I forgot my coffee. Now I’m off. 

7 am – Work! 

10 am – Take a break. Yesterday I was messaging with my Swedish cousin about creating a painting of her house. Doodle her house on the back of a scrap paper while I eat an apple and a banana. Excited to start this project – something different. Check my blog and I’m shocked to discover today’s post is my most popular yet – thanks for reading everyone! I feel motivated. Reapply lipstick. Back to work.

3 pm – Done work. Get home and Dyson the house again in an ongoing battle against dust and dog and cat hair. I vacuum constantly. I will prevail!

3:30 pm – Take dogs for a run. It’s really cold. It starts to snow. I feel crazy. The dogs get spooked by a little kid walking by with his fur-trimmed hood pulled up. Much barking ensues. We continue on our way. 

4:30 pm – Vet appointment to check on Teelo after his procedures last week. He hides under the chair and the vet sits down on the floor to examine him. I join her on the floor. We love our vet office, they are so kind. Teeth are pearly white, stitches need a little more time before removal.

5:00 pm – I’m home, and I have the whole evening to myself. I debate going to kick-boxing but ultimately decide that an evening like this, with a clean house (even *most* of the laundry is put away!) and tired dogs hiding and resting, is too good not to paint. I feed the dogs because now Riggs is crying. He cries a lot.

I grab some coffee and head to the art room. Clicquot joins me in her moose sweater. There are antlers on the hood. She gives me side eye when I take her picture.  

I got to this point with Big Beesa on Monday night:

The painting is 24 x 30″. I drink some coffee and consider my next steps. I get myself set up with all of my references images and sketches. In addition to the sketches I always keep my iPAD with my reference photo nearby. As I paint, I constantly look back and forth between painting and references. Like when you’re driving and you’re supposed to check your side and rear-view mirrors every 3-5 seconds or something like that. It’s really important for staying on track. In art and on the road. 🙂

My palette for this painting leans heavily on burnt umber, yellow ochre burnt, transparent oxide yellow lake, gold ochre, and titanium white. So much titanium white. Red gold lake and Payne’s grey for some of the details, and Scheveningen black for the darkest areas of Beesa and background. All Old Holland Oils. I love this paint. Great investment.

I work for nearly two hours and take another reference pic:

6:45 pm – Take a break to bring my husband a coffee at work. It’s difficult to bring my car window back up after the drive-thru. Worry for a bit that this means the entire driver-side door will have to be replaced. Remind myself to Google this problem later. 

7:30 pm- Home! I let the dogs out again. Clicquot gives the dog next door a warning bark. Back to painting Big Beesa. I didn’t intend to work on Beesa again tonight, but her left eye is really irritating me and was on my mind the whole time I was out. I have to address it. I can’t live like this. 

I trace Beesa’s eye from the same-sized transfer sketch onto an acetate transparency. I hover it above the painting and can see the issue with her eye loud and clear. I decide to finish painting her eyes even though I vowed I wouldn’t bring out the green until the very end. The pigments to make green are so potent they can infect the whole palette like an illness if you’re not careful, casting everything in a queasy green hue – I am very careful and use a totally separate brush for her eyes. I avoid turning Big Beesa into Big Sick Beesa. For this painting “cat eye green” was mixed with Scheveningen blue, Scheveningen yellow medium, burnt umber (this may be the most used colour in my palette ever), and varying amounts of titanium white for highlights. 

8:30 pm – iPad with reference image dies. I write this blog post until it gets to 10% charge – just enough time to use up the paint remaining on my palette. I’m not usually so economical with paint, but for the price, I don’t want to waste any Old Holland paint. 

Using up my leftover paint takes all of five minutes. I decide this is a good place to stop anyway. I probably won’t be able to visit Big Beesa again until this weekend, but maybe it’s good to have some time to think and give the painting some time to dry. I will miss her in the meantime. 

9:30 pm – Clean up. Walk around putting things away around the house. I have half an hour before my husband gets home from work. I sketch some ideas for our Christmas card. I realize I am quickly running out of time for Christmas 2018. 

By now Riggs is in the art room crying because Clicquot won’t share the bed with him. I call it a day. 

10:15 pm – My husband is home from work. The dogs go nuts. I let them out for their bedtime business. It’s cold and I have to force them down the deck stairs. I realize I didn’t eat dinner because I was busy painting. We make a snack and talk about our days. We watch a few episodes of Season 1 of Friends on Netflix. We’ve had it on a loop for the past few weeks. I like to listen while i paint. I write the rest of this blog post, tidy up, and get organized for tomorrow. 

12 am – Bedtime.

Thanks for reading everyone 🙂 Happy Friday! I will be back on Sunday with a recap of the week. Have a great weekend.