Border Collie Set Free. Another Painting Recipe.

As an artist there are some subjects that you feel compelled to paint over and over again.

It's different for each person, but for me it's the lively body of Grace the border collie, much loved family pet and walker of long walks.
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I've painted her a lot at the seaside, in fact I've got a new work on the easel at the moment approaching the halfway stage. But for this painting  I want to depict her in her everyday habitat, a bright green field in rural Cambridgeshire. Perhaps I exaggerate a bit with with the bright green, given the weather that's over us at the moment, but this is where she lives and walks, the English countryside.

Here is how
I painted "Border Collie Set Free."

Materials:
Canvas panel 30 x 30 cm.
Pencil
Sketchbook drawings of a field, some trees and of course our border collie.
Oil paints: burnt sienna, cadmium yellow, lemon yellow, cadmium red, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, pthalo blue, Payne's grey and titanium white.
Brushes: short flat and filberts of sizes 0 to 6. Round size 2.
Odourless spirit.

Method :
I first drew in the image roughly where I wanted it
Painted burnt sienna and patches of cadmium yellow to the tree line, and painted in the sky with cobalt blue.
Added  Paynes grey for the dog and tree.
Let it dry.
When it was truly dry I added the detail, starting at the top so I don't smudge the painting below. It took a long time to adjust the colours of the field  because I knew I wanted a shock of yellow in the distance. For the tree and Grace I wanted to preserve the spontaneity of the subject so didn't mess about with them too much.

I hope this conveys the sheer joy of a carefree morning walk in the countryside.



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