Just like life is a journey and not a destination, paintings are a process, not a product. Here's how the sheep came to be immortalized. A couple of years ago, I trailed a friend to the ranch where she boards her horse, Happy. Both dogs went along for the ride, and I took lots of photos of the various animals there, hoping to get some good ones for reference pictures for future paintings. And Friday, when my daughter and her beloved were in the belly of the great silver beast, suspended above solid ground for most of the freaking day, I got busy doing stuff to distract myself from my own SELF-CENTERED FEAR. And one of the tasks I undertook was to sort my photos on my disk, a monumental and thoroughly boring endeavor. And gee, there were those animals! Well, I cropped one photo, printed it out, and later that evening, when I had most of my job done here in the office, I laid out a palette and dippy-dabbed away at a portrait of this sweet little family. Note that Mom has her back totally shorn, though the rest of her is admirably fluffy. Artistic license let me ignore that little fact. And I am not unhappy with my painting, no not at all. So satisfied, I will be rendering this scene next. They look like sweet kids, all of them, with holes in the knees of their pants.
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