Portrait Marathon: #5 Miss Star

Note to future participants:  Have your photos ready!  Keep an eye on your email if you know your turn is coming up, so I don't have to skip over you.  ;)  

Miss Star
Acrylic on canvas
© Xan Blackburn

Star's portrait took a whole different direction than ... any portrait I've ever done, I guess!  Why is that?  Who knows?  A question for the Art Fates, and they're not talking.  (I know; I sent them a very polite email, left a few voice messages, sent a registered mail or two, and ... nothing.  Crickets chirping.)
Those of you who've been watching me for awhile know that I usually start with an underpainting to establish values, then glaze in colors and top with details.  Not Miss Star!  She had her own ideas!

Star's softly faded blue brindle, her sleepy-eyed gaze, her pink collar, and those little teeth revealed in her relaxed mouth, inspired a sort of hazy love affair.  Her coat looks just as her "mom" says; bunny soft, plush.  Somewhere in all that gentleness though is a sparky ol' gal, who will bark 'til you get it right, and I hope I got some of that in a certain pointedly self-confident look in her eyes.  She sees no competition for her crown, you might say.

So, Miss Star shed her soft light on my easel for awhile, to my great joy.  As her portrait moves to the varnishing and shipping side of the studio, Emily is up next, with her boy Dave.

Miss Star- in progress
© Xan Blackburn