Painting a dog is not so hard

I thought it would be impossible to paint a dog. I don't know why. But it really turns out to be an exercise in placement. You have to get the nose and the eyes in the right place and much of the rest is following the outline carefully to get the right shape of that particular dog. I am extremely recently partial to dachshunds because my son got one "BIRDIE" two years ago and she is quite the diva. She isn't black like this one. She is red and I have painted her silliness many times. It's fun. It's a good way to warm up.

Limited palette: Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine blue, and Indian Yellow

This is another limited palette painting. It's very very fun to do many and line them all up and see how similar and different they appear all at the same time. In the beginning during the "lay in" stage it's easy to say oh I'll never get the colors to pop or stand out but the longer you create you "soup" (the combination of colors you're mixing on your palette) the more the tiniest differentiations start to appear and add definition to your canvas. I am now convinced that this is the way to learn. 1. You realize that a painting is about the canvas not the image or the photograph 2 You are striving toward harmony 3. You are actively experiencing at a very simple and effective level the differences between darker or lighter and the other important question, warmer or cooler, or brighter or duller. Your mind is not confounded but a vast array of colors with so many different values. If you must add more colors, wait until you've laid in the main idea to your satisfaction and use the 4th color carefully to enhance.