Big Goat - 12

© Ellen Blonder

Working on the smooth-leaved plant in front of the goat is a welcome change after painting all that fur. Only the leaves toward the right are finished.

Big Goat - 11

© Ellen Blonder

Painting fur all day long. I'm two-thirds done down the length of his body, then still need to add highlights and shadow.

Big Goat - 10

© Ellen Blonder

I realized I was already painting the goat's fur way too finely, noodling it in with a 00 brush before I getting the general sweep of all those unruly locks. Today, I roughed it all in with a bigger brush, to refine more gradually.

Big Goat - 9

© Ellen Blonder

I'm filling in the plant on the lower left, in front of the goat. Otherwise, it's hard to judge how light to go with the goat's fur. It doesn't feel like fast progress, until I realize the painting is about four times the area I usually paint. Only the darkest leaves on the bottom are even close to finished.

Big Goat - 8

© Ellen Blonder

The fur is at a point where it looks terrible, with the much of the under color painted, but not the detailed lighter fur over it. It'll be hard to rest until I get it right.

Big Goat - 7

© Ellen Blonder

I've spent the last few days focusing on the lower right side, leaf by leaf, with more and more detail.

Big Goat - 6

© Ellen Blonder

Hard to know what order to paint things, but the bromeliads in the lower right corner wanted attention most, yesterday and today. The leaves aren't done; it's tricky sorting each one apart from the others.

Big Goat - 5

© Ellen Blonder

Hard to spot today's progress, but I worked on underpainting the fur and filling in the grass underfoot.

Big Goat - 4

© Ellen Blonder

Facing the face today, especially those weird goat eyes.

Big Goat - 3

© Ellen Blonder

I wanted to photograph today's progress with my slippers in the picture to give a sense of scale. This one's going to take a while, but at least today I laid washes to cover all that white canvas.

Big Goat Painting - 2

© Ellen Blonder

Roughing in background today, trying to be patient about more careful painting later. 

Big Goat Painting - 1

© Ellen Blonder

© Ellen Blonder

I haven't done a big painting in a long time. This one is on a 3 x 4-foot canvas. After a week of sketching in details to scale, I've finally started the underpainting the last couple of days. I spied the goat in a field in Kapa'a earlier this year, and he posed for me obligingly. Painting his long ivory fur is going to be a challenge.