Bailey ad infinitum

As some of you may know, I was asked several months ago by UK artist Gill Barron, Painter of Everything, to be a contributing artist in her how-to book on acrylic painting, to be published by Quarto Publishing. VERY EXCITING! I've been hard at work putting finishing touches on two large paintings with progress photos and text for the project, and I'm finally done. One painting is an interior/still life, and one is a portrait of our Bailey.

I can't show you the finished paintings, but if you look real hard you might catch a blurry partial glimpse of one in this photo I took of Bailey in my studio.*

While I was doing the cropping and sizing to get this blog-ready, I had the thought, what if I did a painting of this photo and took another picture of Bailey sitting in front of that painting? And then what if I did another painting of that photo and took a picture of Bailey in front of that painting? And THEN ... I had to stop thinking about it because I was starting to blow my own mind a little bit.

* The day after I took this photo I found this art card by Nicole Wong and I just HAD to have it. It's just, oh, SO Bailey.

Bailey

Anticipating Spring ©2008 Karen Mathison Schmidt
6 x 6 • acrylic on Gessobord
gloss varnish for protection and easy cleaning
SOLD

Here’s Bailey, in a comfy spot by the window, looking out at the wintery day. I like to imagine she’s anticipating the warm days ahead, but I really have no idea what goes on in that head. She might be remembering back to her carefree kitten days (as opposed to her stress-ridden and over-burdened life of today ... ha!). Or she might be planning her next strategic move in her secret plan to become Queen of the Universe.

I really meant to take more work in progress photos, but once I got to a certain point, I just couldn’t stop painting ... I guess I was “in the zone”!


and here’s a close-up view: