Painting: Zoe Dog Portrait for Christmas

After having fun with landscapes I decided to get back into what I've always loved: portraits. I thought I'd start a bit easier with a portrait of our dog, Zoe. (Explanation about Zoe: I got her when I was dating David and then about a year after we married we moved to the Bay Area and Zoe went to my in-laws in Phoenix, we thought for a few months, but it's been about 8 years. When we moved back to Utah, and a fenced yard, we just couldn't take her away from them, so though she still seems like ours she is a pet we visit rather than live with.) I also thought it would be an easy pick of a subject to do a painting for David for Christmas because he loves Zoe!

Well, it was so much fun working on this! I do love portraits. I love the challenge. I can't be lazy at all if I'm trying to get a good likeness and that was the case here. I thought Zoe would be a bit easier but I might as well have been painting my daughter, Audrey, because it seemed that degree of difficulty.

I feel like this is my first strong painting since getting back into it. It's nice to have completed something I'm excited about. It was especially fun to see David's, and his parents', reactions when he opened it for Christmas. They were surprised and loved it. In fact, I should probably do one sometime for David's father because he's always drawn to dog paintings.

This is a small canvas too--8"x10--but because it's a close up it felt about right in terms of brush size, strokes and the level of detail I wanted. Now I know...