More dog

Shelly is a Pekinese crossed with a Japanese Chin.  Very funny, affectionate, loyal, kind, and a little insecure. 

My Walking Friend

Fireworks night.

We were in the middle of our usual Friday movie night qv, and a series of explosions shook the house - no, not John Key celebrating early, it was during a lull in the rain, and being near enough to Guy Fawkes'  night, someone nearby was letting off those really expensive big fireworks.  We pressed the pause button and exited out the front door and there it all was!  We had a grandstand view from the verandah, and I snapped these pics in literally the last twenty seconds of the display, not expecting them to turn out at all and not having the time to check them until it was all over.  I'm quite chuffed with them!  Much credit due to my camera - a Canon EOS 400D.  Ta dah!  Here they are for your viewing pleasure.  They should be clickable.

Painting: Sheep in morning mist DONE

The sheep are done.  More detailed but bluer in the foreground, and just indicated with warm cream blobs in the distance.  A  few highlights of ochre and burnt siena for textures on the edges of the hills here and there, a dab of richer prussian blue in the shadows and slap a bit of appropriately-hued paint on the edges of the boxed canvas, signature, and Bob's your uncle.

Painting: Sheep in morning mist 3

I've warmed up the hills and done the mist... I think it will stay like this; the atmosphere is coming along nicely.  Next the sheep.  However before I tackle them I'm off to vote.  

Painting: Sheep in morning mist 2

The sky is in and the sun on the hilltops and bush.

Painting: Sheep in morning mist.

I got up early one morning a while ago and drove up into the hills between Tauranga and Rotorua.  Just after the sun had risen, I came upon this dear little valley encircled with bush (the word New Zealanders use for full, four storey, canopied native forest).  The mist had burnt off the sunlit sides and top, but lingered in the valley floor.  A few sheep had climbed up into the sun and were munching on the golden grass, and three or four were still taking their time in the shadows, slowly following a sheep-track along and up the slope.  The shadows of the hills on the right stretched across onto the left hand slope forming two interesting shapes.

Working from photos and water colour sketches I did at the time, I roughed the scene on canvas with pencil...

...then blocked in the main colours with watery acrylics.  I'm not concerned with the detail yet.