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Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Day 14 Bella

Day 14 Bella

Meet Bella, she is one of the sweetest goats on planet earth.
Bella is one of the Nubian goats we raise.
Nubians are dairy goats and she is a great mama and a great milker.
My husband milks our goats and makes many varieties of goat cheese.
We can't sell the cheese because of the USDA and all the regulations involved.
We are a small producer so it would be cost prohibitive to build a cheese house,
install another septic system, 
as well as many other rules and regs,
so we eat some pretty great cheese.
She was named Bella because she has the markings of a Holstein cow
and one of our grandsons wanted to name her Bella after a cow bell.
She is just such a sweet goat but she is not as nosey as other goats.
FYI, goats don't eat tin cans, but they will try to lick out anything in a tin can.
They don't eat every plant, there are plants they don't like, but they will eat the bark right off some, but not all, trees,
They love cedar. 
They all have their own personalities and she's a sweetheart.
I'm really happy with this painting.  
I've been studying other animal paintings, especially the cats done by Diane Hoeptner,
and how she gets her cats to have that velvety look.
I asked her how many variations of gray does she use on her cat Cocoa and she said she starts with three but usually ends up with about five shades.
I studied the photographs I have of our goats and definitely saw a minimum of three shades of black, so I mixed up my black, took half of it and added white, and then took half of that and added more white,
and you can see on my palette where I also mixed some of the shades in varying amounts to get some of the highlights and shadows on all that black.
Naturally I had to do the same thing with white.
Whenever I paint white, I always start with gray and lighten it up in stages.
 
Thank you to Diane for your direction.
Click Here to go to Diane's blog.
Bella
5" x 7" unframed acrylic on a panel.
$50 + $6 shipping.  


6 comments:

  1. Wonderful job on your sweet, adorable goat, Sharon. I was very excited to see this one! How wonderful to be learning from another artist...

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  2. I learn from every artist I follow and I love seeing so much great art. Thanks for always being so supportive!

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  3. Sweet painting Sharon. I bet your cheese is wonderful too. I have had goat milk fudge, oh yum. I have painted goats, they have those creepy eyes, lol

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    Replies
    1. Barb, they do have some weird looking eyes, but Bellas are almost black against that black fur made it really hard to get them in there. I probably spent more time on the eyes than the rest of her. I had to put some white highlights there because you couldn't see them at all. Thanks for much for the comment.

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  4. Glad to be of service, Sharon! Bella is a beauty and I love how that path she's on recedes back, well done! (TY for the mention!)

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About Me

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Ghent, Kentucky, United States
I'm a nature artist and I love to paint old barns, rivers and lakes, trees and fence rows and flowers. I work almost daily. You can purchase paintings by contacting me at slgraves6@gmail.com and there is also a tab across the top of my blog for available paintings and one for small paintings with buy now buttons. You can also purchase through my Etsy shop using the name of Fine Nature Art. . Thank you so much for stopping by.