Bonjour!

A dear friend got married over the weekend. It was a lovely ceremony and reception, followed by an excellent field party…with a METEOR SHOWER!! Pretty perfect!

Of course, when I met Sarah and Brent’s dog Amelia, my first thought for their wedding gift was a portrait of their dog. She looks like a little black bear, with big brown eyes, and has the sweetest personality.  For Sarah and Brent’s wedding, I did a fair amount of crafting as well, of course in tandem with the portrait painting. I made a couple of framed signs, for gifts and cards, painted on wallpaper. And I made a garland with recycled harlequin novel pages. Since we were playing around with different prints with the wedding decorations, I liked the idea of doing a “printed” background in the painting. See below a bit of the progression of the work, as well as the partially completed paper garland in the box:

I enjoyed the combination of decorative and portrait painting. The background was loosely copied from an old wallpaper pattern, and the portrait painted from a photo. I liked the juxtaposition of Amelia’s little black bear face and the fussy floral wallpaper. It was fun to do!

I have another painted portrait of a dog coming up, as well as a little drawing of a brother, sister and kitty. I’m just finishing up a painting of a cat. Aaaaannd, I’m hoping to finish up a little side project tomorrow, too – a small series of black and white paintings of my hometown, Perth, Ontario, to be sold exclusively at Groundwaves, in Codes Mill, in Perth.  Busy, busy, busy!

Oh yeah – and here is the finished painting of Amelia!

Thanks for reading.

xo melody