My Mom and I picked up a couple frames yesterday for some of my paintings and it's got me thinking.  One of the frames is for this painting below of our cat, Lily, who passed away over a year ago.  I did a little 7" X 5" portrait of her around 2012-2013.  I'm not entirely sure of when I painted it because I didn't sign it with the date in those days.  You can even see the early beginnings of my current signature, which is directly inspired by Bouguereau.
  The painting is small and not particularly well executed, but I really like it.  It captures the emotion of our cat as I remember her; maybe that's the reason why I like this painting.  It feels more sincere to me than some of my recent work.  I know I've been improving a lot lately, but I've decided to go back to basics with a lot of my techniques.  I always have to remind myself to go back to basics because I get caught up in technique.  
  I'm making some linen panels today and I'm going to do some paintings on them with a more basic medium and see how they turn out.  Stay tuned.. 

  I've got a bunch of these 5" X 7" pet portraits that I'll be shipping out soon!  

  I just signed the portrait of my girlfriend and got a frame also!  The frame is from a really cool antique shop in Ho Ho Kus, NJ. called Granny's Attic.  I had to touch up the frame a little bit because it's old, but I love the style of it.  All I have left to do is varnish it and it's all done.

  I just put the finishing touches on my portrait!  I wasn't sure if I wanted to work on it today because I always fear over-working a painting.  I'm so glad that I did work on it because now it is completely done. It's always tough to decide when something is finished but I always try and finish when my gut tells me it's done.  All that's left is that I have to sign it.
 This is the first painting that I've completed for 2017 and I'm very proud of it.  It captures the spirit and likeness of my girlfriend exactly as I wanted.  I've been doing a lot of drawing commissions recently also via Instagram, but I want to start a new painting soon.  I'm thinking about doing a profile portrait of my best friend, Russell.