Teelo went to the vet on Thursday afternoon and got his stitches out. We found out that he has lost even more weight on his diet. Our sweet little boy is doing so well. He’s like a puppy again. Teelo is a devious, clever fellow who has the world wrapped around his little paws. He hid under the chair at the vet’s office (as per usual) and eventually I had to drag him out for the stitches removal. I told him, “Teelo, this is life, this is happening.” By some Christmas miracle the vet tech was easily able to pull out the stitches as I held him in a bear hug. At this point Teelo, sensing that he was now out of hot water, danced around the office bum first, accepting bum scratches and liver treats as he sashayed like a little dog maniac around the room. 

I spent Thurday evening working on a new video for the website! If you’ve ever wondered how to start an oil painting, or if you just want to watch an entertaining and fun video, you should definitely check it out. I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile now but just wasn’t camera ready at the right times :). I really want to add some regular instructional content here and there – I love teaching. I’ve been toying with the idea of a “learn to draw” type series or ideas little art projects readers can do themselves. Anyway, I figure (I hope) it might be useful to someone out there, and it was really fun to create.

I’m still learning how to use iMovie. I could not for the life of me find the voice-over control tonight, I had to watch a YouTube tutorial to find it. So far, I find that the editing is the most time-consuming part of the process. In comparison the speaking was the easy part! – I had been rehearsing what I wanted to say in my head and thinking it through for awhile – especially on dog walks. I enjoy public speaking – I had to do a fair number of presentations when I was in graduate school and other than being nervous about messing up, I kind of always liked the idea of it. I would say that was one of the lasting skills I kind of took after grad school – not the science as much as being able to hopefully string together some coherent sentences in a somewhat entertaining way. 

If there’s art learning content that you would like, if you have any art-related questions, if there’s something you’d like to ask about – ask away in the comments section below or send me a message. I’ll see what I can do! Art school and many (many!) years of working at Curry’s art store in high school and undergrad means I have quite a bit of technical and product knowledge. I still remember the item codes for the cash register after all this time (and yet, I couldn’t tell you much about something like physical chemistry, even though I took an entire course in 2nd year university and got an A… So many exams I feel like I carefully held onto my knowledge as I gingerly walked into the exam room, dumped it all onto the papers in front of me for an hour, and retained literally nothing the moment I handed everything in). 

I didn’t have as much time for Big Beesa tonight as I had anticipated. I worked on her ears for a bit and some of her coat. The light colour in her ears was a bit challenging to blend – it’s actually a mix of white, burnt umber, Payne’s grey (always those colours!) and varying amount of alizarin lake and burnt sienna for warmth.

With any animal like Beesa where there is a lot going on with her pattern and all the different colours in her coat (same goes for animals with lots of fur!!), there is a big risk that you will lose sight of the elements that make it distinct and just kind of muddy it all together with too many colours and not enough dominant lines and a lack of order and detail. So I always try to take a step back when dealing with something like this, try not to get lost with too much time working on it and sitting too close to really see what’s going on. Frequent breaks are good and so are pictures. I find it really difficult to assess the painting when seated right in front of the painting. Looking at the work through a photo really helps to show me what’s good and what may be veering off course. After an hour or so I figured it was a good place to stop even though I hadn’t really got too far. I was getting tired and I just had the sense that I should stop before I ruined Big Beesa. 

Thanks for visiting everyone. Happy Friday and happy weekend!