| Things were looking better but were somewhat out of balance. At Jeffrey's suggestion, in went the little dog to the right of the ear. Then Jeffrey grabbed a paintbrush as he wanted to show me a great way to paint some of the other dogs in. Jeffrey has painted for many years, but lately he's been on the computer doing his animation, so... it was nearly impossible to get the paintbrush back from him once he started going! Of course what he painted looked so terrific, now I really had a challenge. The dogs were starting to be not only dark blue, but different colors, so one by I painted the rest of the dogs in... |
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| I have to give a big thank you to NY Artists Circle, an ever-growing group of NY artists, led by ever-energetic artist Barbara Ellmann, who meet once a month for breakfast to share all types of information about making art and getting it out in the world. I spoke with a number of artists from this group (several of whom were involved in the Cow Parade) about the best materials to use for Ivan. |
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| After mulling over several options for varnishing, I decided to finish the dog in grand style using Lascaux's waterbased UV varnish. Though on the pricey side, this is a great product, worth every penny, and it goes a long way! I bought two of the largest-size containers available of this and only used about 3/4 of one container. After 7 coats of varnish, I decided this dog was ready to rumble! On the next page you can see some closeups of the dog... |
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