#190 Paul's Boots 9/12/19

I've been too busy, busy, busy....but tonight decided, no matter how late it got, I was going to paint something before I went to bed.  It ended up being Paul's boots.  Once I got the sketch down I realized I was going to have to do laces, uggh!  But they were round laces, so I figured it wouldn't be so bad.  And it wasn't.  The laces were the very last thing I painted...they were bare canvas white stripes right up until the end.  And since I had to get up at 5 AM the next morning, I sort of rushed the whole thing.  I think that helped me keep the painting loose and not over-blended, like I tend to do.  Joe looked over my shoulder as I finished up, and I asked what stood out as "not right".  He said the red parts were too red and the orange parts were too orange.  So I did tone those two bright spots down, and was thankful he pointed that out.

On a side note....I actually hired a house cleaner.  My lack of attention to the house was driving me nuts and since I got a small promotion with a small increase in pay at work, I decided to dedicate it to someone who would pay attention to the dirt.  Dave's bachelor-brother passed me the name of his house cleaner...she's been here 3 times so far.  First time alone, second time her sister came and helped her, third time she had a new employee she was breaking it (as she told me).  The new employee was dusting the living room....and my wet giraffe painting was laying out flat to dry, and she "dusted" it...fingerprints in the paint at the bottom and an orange smear of giraffe body paint into the sky.  Gone were my nice giraffe spots!  Yikes!  Being oil paint, I was able to fix it...it took about an hour to get it back to the original look, and his face might actually be a bit better with this second rendition.  My biggest concern was that the oil-paint on the dusting rag might have been subsequently smeared over other pieces of furniture being dusted!  Oh no!  I didn't find anything amiss, and the house cleaner was very apologetic when I told her about it.  I'll be keeping my wet paintings out of harms way with the next cleaning appointment!