A Work In Progress

I've been at this stodgily, but my heart isn't in it, and it shows. I'm still recovering from Thomas's death and I just can't paint when I am so terribly sad. Thomas was a special cat.. All the animals in my life are and have been special, in their own way, but there was something about Thomas.. she was more human than any of the others, except for Shulky, my dog, who died of old age. Somehow, losing a loved one to old age is easier to accept than something like what happened to Thomas. I still see Thomas shadowing me around wherever I go in the house.. I turn around to look and only emptiness meets my eyes.. there is no way I can explain how empty that feels.

Anyway, I am determined to struggle on with my painting, and though I know this will not get rid of the emptiness Thomas's death has created in my life, I will dedicate this painting to my beloved cat.

I'm still getting used to the nuances of acrylics, most of which I'm discovering via trial and error. I need to push that second flower back so that the focus is on the first flower. I don't know if I want to put more details on the leaves.. at the moment I feel they are fine as they are. Maybe I'll texture the red leaves a little more. I sort of struggled with the background on this one.. I didn't know whether I wanted it lighter or darker than the foreground.. I think the darker one that I opted for at the bottom part is working well to give that pop-out effect for the leaves. But the flowers are sort of getting lost in the lighter background on the top half. Maybe I'll change the background colour there, instead of changing the value.. use a complementary colour and see if that works. The best thing about acrylics is that I can do that, and in a jiffy.