Buck's Portrait

This is being delivered to the client tonight and is 36x24" soft pastel on stretched watercolor canvas. (all I can say is Unison pastels are the BEST).

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"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace." - Milan Kundera

Too Sexy for her hat... carving project cont.

Gibraltar.....

I was walking down a street on an unusually sunny Seattle afternoon, and this gorgeous Great Dane, who was tied to a small tree on the sidewalk. He was obviously waiting expectantly for his owner, and was totally devoted to the moment of their return, and when it came to naming this work, I wanted something that not only conveyed his size and demeanor, but also his devotion. I was blessed to have a camera at that gorgeous time of the day with "sweet light", a stunning subject and some great study photos to work from.


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It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.--Monet

Painting Pablo....

As the blog suggests, the idea is that we are together in my studio. So I thought today, that I'd let you see where I start with a commission and where I'm going until I abandon a current project ("Art is never completed, it is merely abandoned").

I finished this commission approx. two weeks ago. And I had the great fortune to actually meet the subject before I started on the project. His breed is a "Chin", and he is only about 3 pounds. He is minuscule in the eyes of his wolf ancestors. But his personality is on par with any Mongolian Emperor of old. We are his devoted subjects and Pablo knows it. He also has a very interesting solid Zen-like presence in person. His little personality radiates from his diminutive form, which I would never have understood without seeing him.

So we intersect his coloring (see the blog post previously on the color black), and the play of light and contrasts (see the blog post on light, contrast and hue), and we are at "Radiance".

And yes, even tho he is an emperor, he does have those disheveled ear hairs... even rulers get bed-head.

Photo realism is NOT my goal. As Picasso once pointed out, we have photography, there is no reason to try to repeat it. Art is more than photography. I am trying to capture the essence of my subject and their personality with one image. And I fully exploit light, shade and color to achieve those ends.

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You should keep on painting no matter how difficult it is, because this is all part of experience, and the more experience you have, the better it is.. unless it kills you, and then you know you have gone too far.--Alice Neel

Musings on black.....

This is Buck, my latest "muse". He modeled for his studies last Tuesday and he has been waking me at night composing ideas and inspirations in my head for his portrait. I may end up doing two and letting his "Mom" decide which she would prefer. His personality is slightly larger than life and the artistic challenges of his coat color and texture are very exciting.

Because black absorbs all color, I love to put lots of color in the highlights, like I did in "Redemption Value".... and her little black spots which I put, in her case, lots of true blue and a very wee bit of yellow to make it "pop".

I am also feeling that due to his slightly larger than life energy, I may do this portrait a bit larger than I have been... it's gestating in my head and it feels so great to have all these creative yearnings and energy and the time to work.

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A sincere artist is not one who makes a faithful attempt to put on to canvas what is in front of him, but one who tries to create something which is, in itself, a living thing.
::: William Dobell :::