Doug !

As soon as the invitation to Doug's early birthday party (people who live in the Rockies do this sort of thing--it makes it possible for more people to actually get to events, rather than have everyone lose the courage to drive through Kootenay National Park, with the most terrifying drop-offs  disappearing under a layer of snow and ice .  You have no idea how good Radium Hot Springs can look until you have driven this route !  Even then it is still a tricky trip to finish the trip to Invermere.) Now that the real birthday has just passed, I was finally inspired to actually paint this one, along with the one of Stan.  It takes far more gumption to actually paint these, than it does paint !  At least the article about the pitfalls of painting smiling faces arrived in my in-box after I had wrestled this one to the ground.  If I had read it first, I might easily have lost the courage to go out there and try it.  I did struggle with the smile, of course, and am still not that pleased with it, but one does have to  just declare some things "finished" before further attempts create disaster.  The truly clever painter will also be careful to use the non-staining colours in the paint box, enabling multiple removals of inappropriate strokes.  Not removing the paper, too, is another challenge one gets to meet !