These two paintings are small. The ballerina is 9 x 12" and the lamb is 8 x 10". Both are oils.

I did the ballerina pretty easily, except for the face, which took many tries to get it looking ok. I painted the background in the ballerina in a few minutes. I never questioned it- just popped it in. Nice when it goes that way.

I panted the lamb in acrylics first and over painted in oils. I was considering leaving it as an acrylic but I wanted a really rich looking background. Then of course I couldn't get the background looking the way I wanted it at all. After fighting with it all afternoon yesterday, I left it alone.

Today I went in the studio, wiped out all the paint on the background, and started from scratch. Now it looks more like what I had in mind originally. Good grief!

We're hiring a new model and painting with some artist friends in my studio on Sunday. I'm looking forward to it, with a little trepidation. Working from life is still nerve wracking for me. However, this is my year to challenge myself so we'll see what happens.

We will have my husband, Alan and our friend, Kiff Holland there- both excellent figurative painters, so they can show us how it's done.