Joe Blundo commentary: Artist’s 53 animal portraits in 52 weeks

Newly divorced, Elizabeth Ellis needed something to lift her spirits. “I was in a really bad place, and I needed to get out of my head and do something for somebody who was in a worse place than I was,” she said. So, at the beginning of 2015, she set out to paint 52 watercolor portraits — one a week — of animals awaiting adoption at shelters nationwide.