A Man and his Dogs…New painting May 2014

Ok, so I may have completely fallen off the blog post writing band wagon. Life has been busy. Lets just put it down to having a teen daughter half way through her final year of school. All my extra time and energy resources are being flung her way, keeping her motivated, fed and watered. Life as a 'Mum that paints' is a juggling act, precarious at times, with the family (mostly) being the priority. I don't always get it right. I am not time poor, I am just procrastination rich and the blog has been the first casualty. Lets see if I can rectify this for the next half of the year... I've had two commissions over the last 6 weeks and I must say, I partly blame these gorgeous paintings for my blog neglect. They have both been 'hush, hush, keep it quiet on all social media' paintings, surprise gifts for their future recipients and therefore I haven't been able to write-up about them prior to now. Keeping them quiet has not been an issue, it's a delight to know that a painting is going to be such an amazing, lifetime gift and to keep it under wraps for a few short weeks is no big deal. Not writing about them as soon as they were finished, weeks ago, prior to drying and varnishing, has simply taken me out of my habit zone. But I'm back…I hope! So here we have it…A man and his dogs, for want of a better title! A 50th Birthday present organised by a very loving sister to her beloved brother. What a spectacular gift…an heirloom to be handed down through the family and a timely gift, given that one of the beautiful pooches is in her golden years, speckled with grey and sliding quietly into an older age. It was a delight to paint these beautiful dogs with their man. I am sure I am being lead to focussing a lot of my future paintings around capturing our delightful fur friends in company with their people. At delivery, I found out that the older dog, Selabi (Sell-a-bee) is actually their neighbours dog, but they have walked her for the last 8 years and she is their much-loved adopted fur child! What a gorgeous story. Peppa is their young baby…I met her and she is totally gorgeous! I was approached to do this commission via my Facebook page, a follower based Overseas. She sent through an email with the image and I knew instantly it was a photo I would love to paint. Happy snaps do not always make for beautiful paintings but this one had all the markings of a good image…strong composition, great catch lights in the eyes, harmonious colour palette. There was very little I needed to adjust to transfer it from photo to painting. I am thrilled with the result…and luckily for me, so is the client (who has seen the finished product via email) and the recipient and his family, based here in Perth, have taken delivery and are (hopefully!) proud to hang it on their wall. Apart from these two commissions I have been busily painting away at my own projects. Two of my arty friends and I have put in a proposal for an exhibition in 18 months time…we are awaiting confirmation of our proposal having been excepted. Waiting, waiting…3 months until we hear. Paint on I will. It's also exhibition season…three in the last month. All unsuccessful in sales, such is the market. Not to be daunted though. Artists are not in it for the money, that's for sure! Cant wait to share the other commission, hopefully next week... Monet, Manet and Minet Quin are still adventuring, come over to Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/mymiasart if you would like to follow their fun. I am a photo away from the half way mark with this year long project. Can you believe it? Where is this year disappearing to? I am sorry to say for my Wordpress followers, but battling through photo uploads on WordPress was just taking too long, so Facebook is where the Quins shall remain!! It's so good to be back to the WordPress blogoshere…did ya miss me?? Hahahahah!!!!! Mia x