Garden Rookie: Dog's Life

What?! I've been art making? YES!

Here is a painting that I have just started of a dog. Oddly, I went straight for the background and will be working more on the subject today. I usually try to work the whole thing all at the same time but yesterday it just didn't happen. I think I was subconsciously hesitating the long whispy fur.

I really like the photograph that was given to me for painting this dog so I am a lot more interested in painting it. The colors are fantastic and I think you will see that more in the finished piece.

My second bit to show is this thing that I made. I'm calling it a thing because to call it a mosaic would be a bit of an injustice...My friend is a mosaic maker. A really good one. I went to her studio to 'take some lessons'. I came up with this idea to make my dogs. I drew a simple drawing and then did the outline in mosaic.

I bought this plastic frame from Ikea and took out the glass. I used the glass to outline it's shape on a piece of wood and cut it out. I drew directly on the wood and one piece at a time I cut these little rock squares into the shapes needed and using a cement mixture glued them down. It is not as easy as it looks or sounds! And it took forever!

This is what the hammer I used to break the stone pieces looks like together with this edge that sticks out of a log!

Close up of the mosaic part, and icing like cement!

Now, once I finished the outline, I made up some cement mixtures, mixed in some colored powders and filled in the spaces. It was almost like icing a cake because I did use the tube thing at times! It didn't really turn out as great as I imagined. That's ok..it's only my first try.