I've decided to take up painting...

I recently decided that I wanted to learn to paint. I finally got around to actually buying materials the other day, and then proceeded to paint Babs, my Basset Hound.

My sister had promised that we had acrylic paint, but I got home and realized that she meant a few tubes of like, pastel colors. So I made a blue to match our kitchen and just kinda ran with it.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...ee-d4srjl6.jpg
(it ended up being slightly off center in RL, but this picture makes it look way worse than it is)

I looked at Babs for a little while before sketching it out, but that's about as much of a reference as I got.
I think I might try to do a few other paintings like this to try and figure out how to use a paintbrush before I buy actual colors and start making "real" paintings.

But yeah. It was fun.

Hmmm, are you left-handed, and started at the tail end? Just curious! Good silhouette!

Nope, I'm right handed but the pencil I was sketching it out with didn't have an eraser so I couldn't re-position it, haha.

If you have brushes already, make absolutely sure you clean the brush after every session, never leave it to "soak overnight" or to dry out. Acrylic dries quickly, and can be the death of a brush!

Oh don't worry, I'm taking religious care of my brushes. My art class didn't teach me much in the ways of art, but my teacher drilled into my head proper brush care haha. They were washed and set out to dry as soon as I was done, and they're now snugly back in their case, hiding from my sister.