Digital Painting

So, I woke up at 3:30 AM last night and couldn't get back to sleep.  One good thing about my recent bouts of insomnia, they've been great for my creativity!  I decided to try something I've been interested in doing for awhile now - digital painting.  I've always loved the look of photos edited with textures and filters in a "painterly" style, but I wanted to take it further and have more control over the brush strokes.  I used the smudge tool in photoshop and hand "painted" every stroke of this portrait.  I'm pretty sure I have carpal tunnel syndrome now, but that pen tablet finally made itself useful and I am really delighted with how this turned out.  I think I'm going to be doing a lot more of these,  just as soon as I regain movement in my right hand.  

A digital painting of a blue merle Australian Shepherd dog.