Back To The Drawing Board

It has been back to the drawing board and also back to Square One this past ten days. 

I thought I was all done with twice daily trips to the barn since Scottie's lump has shriveled up to almost nothing, and I did have a week to myself. But, a little over a week ago, Scottie came in for breakfast very lame in his bad leg. We thought he had reinjured his tendon, so I resumed twice daily trips to the barn to cold hose his leg. The vet came out two days later and quickly diagnosed him as having another hoof abscess. She dug out a hole on his sole to let it drain and wrapped it and left directions for me to change the wrap every 48 hours or so. Since then I've been going to the barn daily to check on him, give him some sympathy and rewrap the hoof. As of yesterday, he is doing much better, and I'm hoping to stay home more again. 

Meanwhile, I've begun one new painting and am doing the preliminary work for another. These two are destined for the benefit auction for Second Chance Ranch and Rescue next month. I've got to hurry to get them done! The first will be a painting of our cat, Annie, which we lost three years ago. She was a beautiful cat, and this should be an appealing painting. I'm doing it in a quick, loose style like I've done the smaller paintings lately. I like working that way. 

The second painting is of two barn swallow babies, and I'm working from one of the photos I took at the barn. I had to do some work in Photoshop to compose the painting, and now I'm trying to figure out the Photoshop settings to  get a good print out of the photo. Yesterday was a small triumph in that I was able to use my big color printer for the first time with the new computer. I had to download a driver and was afraid that none would be available for this old printer, but there was one for the new intel based Macs. My Epson 2200 was a popular printer, and there must be a lot of them still chugging away. 

At the top you will see the photo of Annie that I'm using for the first painting. The canvas is toned, and I'll begin the painting today or tomorrow. Below is the reference photo for the second painting. The lighting and color aren't perfect yet, so it still needs some tweaking. 

It feels good to have new works started, and I'm also anxious to get back to work on the other three which were begun months ago. I'll keep you posted.