New painting in progress..

After a month or so of artists block, I decided to force myself back into it especially as I have been off work with the pulled back and not able to do much else and also need to get at least a couple more paintings done for exhibitions I wish to enter. I can only work in bursts because my back still doesn't like being in the sitting position for too long or it seizes up. It took long enough to put the photo composite together. The border collies came from a photo I took at our own flyball tournament back in October 08. The farmyard background was from seperate photos I took at a local farm and then the side of the furthest barn, the stone wall and trees/sky were all seperate again. The side of the barn was just a concoction in photoshop along with the kennel. There were a few other changes I made. You can see the messy cloning work on the gate and posts etc...but here is the final result after days and days of messing about. Once that was sorted, I got on with the painting. I'm working from back to front as is usual so here the trees and sky had been put in. The dry stone wall and the side of the barn weren't finished yet in this photo.
You can see a photo stuck to one side with a border collie and terrier in it which shows a wooden kennel that I'll be using as a ref. The border collie is Monty, a dog we bred ourselves when I was a child. He died in 2002. He was also the father of one of my last bitches who died a few weeks before I got Sleet. The terrier we also bred ourselves. He was called Hyde and had a brother, who's in the photo but further over, called Jeckyll. They really were jeckyll and hyde characters and wanted to kill all other dogs. No more terriers after they died. Hyde was run over and killed by a car when he was 8.

Here is more progress on the painting. I did more work on the stone wall and side of the barn so they look much better now. I also started on the nearest side of the barn and also a few bits on the gate and post but I'll finish those once the wall is done. Just base colour so far with the brickwork lines quickly drawn in.