The third Quarter, sick cats and dog, and Halloween

Untitled work (work in progress)

lower left quarter 

Drawing and beginning of the underpainting 

(This section in black)

Acrylic and willow charcoal on gessoed canvas

36 x 48 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

Quite the week! My heart goes out to the people on the east coast
of Canada and the U.S. so badly hit by hurricane Sandy.
 
Here is the third quarter of my big painting.  It's
the bottom left hand side of the four part image.  I bought a
lovely grey colour that I've begun to use just to envision
 where shadows will fall, but the whole painting is strictly at
 the underpainting, and drawing stage.  It's really exciting
when I put the pieces together and see the scale of what
 I'm dealing with.  So much fun.

Not fun has been our animal family -- my dog Zoey and cat
Timbah starting the vet visit trauma last weekend.
 The dog is old, and also has a bladder infection.  We are
 so spoiled with our wonderful Health Care system
in Canada, where we rarely have to pay for doctor visits
and with decent insurance, even for prescriptions.  Not
so in the vet's office.

We love our vet, but with six family human birthdays
 in a row, we did not love the bill.  Then our sweet Fiona,
the Siamese got sick and quit eating last weekend.  She
visited the vet's Monday and Tuesday, was hydrated, force
fed, you name it. A six pound cat can't go without food.
We were so worried. And then miraculously it was the take-out
chicken that struck her fancy, and started her back on the road
 to health and eating. The dog and Timbah seem to be
recovering too.  Everyone else can now relax and enjoy
their birthdays.

The scene in the kitchen where I photographed the painting

-- a Halloween pumpkin, and

Fiona the cat now apparently

recovered observing everything.

Halloween was fun on our street with all the little neighbourhood
kids coming by as Ninjas and princesses.  The older kids sometimes
slink up onto the porch dressed in what look like normal clothes,
but maybe carrying a pillow case.  Their costumes are intellectual.
They describe what they are dressed as and you have to imagine
that to be true. I enjoy giving them candy just for their nerve
and bravado.

Have a painting-big-and-having-healthy-animals day.