Chickens and a Pooch

I finally got some painting accomplished - under a deadline, naturally, but hey, whatever it takes.
This work, Zumbrota Chickens, is actually a design for a street banner  in Zumbrota this summer. The canvas is 12 x 24, but the banner size will be 22 x 28, so a bit will be cropped off the sides. I wanted to keep it simple, graphic and bright, so the image could be easily understoodfrom a distance and it would have fun  summer colors.  Zumbrota is kind of an artsy farming town, so chickens seemed appropriate, plus they are one of my favorite subjects.

Happy Dog at Picket Fence. This one looks better in real life than the photo, I think.  It is for the Artist-Poetry  exhibit at Crossings in April. My assigned poem was very straight-forward, an image of a happy dog inside a picket fence, just "Happy to be Hamlet."  As I stated in my artist notes, I chose this poem because I had recently acquired a puppy, Zinnie. (I didn't state that I am also taking  Mindfulness Meditation classes, so the theme is a fit in that way, too.)

 I have been wanting to try painting  something monochromatic, with subtle hints of color. This white-on-white-on-color is what I ended up with.  A big change from my usual exuberant colors, but it occurred to me that the colors are barely contained beneath the surface of the white, seeping out from under the edges, just as a puppy's exuberant energy is barely controlled by obedience training.