Painting Pedro

My scan went a little bit crooked. But here's the start of my painting of Pedro, our new donkey. He's a very interesting donkey. My take on his actions is this, he had a wonderful home when he was growing up, then I think he was sold to someone who maybe wasn't so nice to him. We bought him from some people who were very kind to him so he doesn't totally expect the worst from you when you want to feed him pellets, or brush him down. But he's extremely shy and wary...very afraid you'll throw a bucket at him or hit him with it. He doesn't like buckets at all.

He doesn't like gloves either. So we hand feed him his treats and we don't wear gloves around him. He also jerks away from you when you try to lead him somewhere. Only if he doesn't want to go, or if he gets scared. Rest of the time, he leads like a dream. He's 10 years old so who knows how long it will take to get him to trust us.

Pedro let me brush him down the other day, he really liked it. I walked up to him carrying the dreaded bucket full of pellets under my left arm and the curry comb was in my left hand. When I reached into the bucket for pellets with my right hand, to get the pellets, he had to come close to the curry comb. He gradually accepted the idea of what I had in my hand. I knew he'd probably seen one before and he knew what they were for. It took about 15 minutes for him to decide I could brush his dirty little hide. But then he really liked it.

We're loving Pedro, he's very much a member of the family, along with Sing Song and Scarlet, and the wild rabbits and squirrels.

In this painting, I've just drawn his shape with my paint brush, onto the canvas and blocked in some forms behind him. I added a little burnt sienna to white to create the highlights on his form. I don't usually like the color that mixture makes, but on this painting, it's right because it is the color of Pedro.

Thanks for stopping by this blog and looking at my work in progress. Come back to see more! :) Donna