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This one’s for my mom – her birthday is next month and she’ll be 97. She has all her faculties and can be a lot of fun. Her main love has always been dogs – any kind, any breed, mutt or pedigree. She moved into an assisted living facility a couple years ago and was able to take her dog with her. He developed diabetes, so at the age of 94 she learned how to give him insulin shots twice a day. He took ill and died last year, and she knows she won’t get another dog, and it’s been a sad adjustment.
Meanwhile, as I’ve been leafing through my old art and collage books, I came across an exercise that intersperses family photos with collage and painting. I started rounding up photos of all her dogs, starting with the ones we had when I was a kid, and planning this little vignette.
This is on a 12x12” canvas. I painted the background with Titanium white acrylic and pressed a sheet of tissue paper into the wet paint, crinkling it for background texture. Once dried, I sketched out the house shape and window. For some reason, I really agonized over a color palette, trying several versions, before deciding on a basic 1950’s, mid-century palette, which would suit her timeline of young adulthood very well. Everything was pastel at the time: pale pink, light blue, pistachio green and light yellows. I had to mix the pistachio green and the pinks to get the tones I was after.
The skirt on the figure is a piece of raw canvas that I colored with Neocolor II crayons, and spread the color with brush and water. Once dried, I used strips of masking tape so I could add the white stripes, then cut it all to fit the little figure, which is on heavy watercolor paper and able to be painted on directly. I added a strip of Washi tape for a belt, and used a black Micron pen to outline the figure, window and chair.
The photos: her headshot is one I cut from a photo from the late 1960’s. The dogs: she is “holding” George, a miniature poodle and the dog I remember having the longest as a kid. Suzy, standing on the chair, is a Fox terrier mix that was her very first dog as a married adult in the mid-1950’s. I remember her living until I was about 12, she had a good long life.
Next to Suzy is Gordy, a black standard poodle. On the far right seated is Tasha the Airedale – mom’s first dog in many years and the first dog she got after she retired. Next to mom on the right is Sophie, a cockapoo, and on her left on the leash is little Coco, a brown poodle mix. In the foreground looking up is Jasper, another poodle mix, her last dog who just died last year.
I scanned some photos from old family albums to get the older dog photos and resized/flipped them as needed to arrange them around her. Three of the photos are pictures I took myself.
The title I gave to the piece is simply a true statement: she always had a way with dogs, adopting only rescue dogs that needed special patience and training, in addition to routine obedience training – and every single one of these dogs had her undivided attention while she worked with them.
As usual, I thought this would be a quick piece but it took much longer, as I hesitated and made changes along the way. I’m quite sick of the thing at this stage and ready to gift it to her in a few weeks!
I hope she likes it.
I'm curious about reactions - is the "cheese" level kinda high on this? Too high? All comments welcomed and appreciated - thanks for looking!
Meanwhile, as I’ve been leafing through my old art and collage books, I came across an exercise that intersperses family photos with collage and painting. I started rounding up photos of all her dogs, starting with the ones we had when I was a kid, and planning this little vignette.
This is on a 12x12” canvas. I painted the background with Titanium white acrylic and pressed a sheet of tissue paper into the wet paint, crinkling it for background texture. Once dried, I sketched out the house shape and window. For some reason, I really agonized over a color palette, trying several versions, before deciding on a basic 1950’s, mid-century palette, which would suit her timeline of young adulthood very well. Everything was pastel at the time: pale pink, light blue, pistachio green and light yellows. I had to mix the pistachio green and the pinks to get the tones I was after.
The skirt on the figure is a piece of raw canvas that I colored with Neocolor II crayons, and spread the color with brush and water. Once dried, I used strips of masking tape so I could add the white stripes, then cut it all to fit the little figure, which is on heavy watercolor paper and able to be painted on directly. I added a strip of Washi tape for a belt, and used a black Micron pen to outline the figure, window and chair.
The photos: her headshot is one I cut from a photo from the late 1960’s. The dogs: she is “holding” George, a miniature poodle and the dog I remember having the longest as a kid. Suzy, standing on the chair, is a Fox terrier mix that was her very first dog as a married adult in the mid-1950’s. I remember her living until I was about 12, she had a good long life.
Next to Suzy is Gordy, a black standard poodle. On the far right seated is Tasha the Airedale – mom’s first dog in many years and the first dog she got after she retired. Next to mom on the right is Sophie, a cockapoo, and on her left on the leash is little Coco, a brown poodle mix. In the foreground looking up is Jasper, another poodle mix, her last dog who just died last year.
I scanned some photos from old family albums to get the older dog photos and resized/flipped them as needed to arrange them around her. Three of the photos are pictures I took myself.
The title I gave to the piece is simply a true statement: she always had a way with dogs, adopting only rescue dogs that needed special patience and training, in addition to routine obedience training – and every single one of these dogs had her undivided attention while she worked with them.
As usual, I thought this would be a quick piece but it took much longer, as I hesitated and made changes along the way. I’m quite sick of the thing at this stage and ready to gift it to her in a few weeks!
I hope she likes it.I'm curious about reactions - is the "cheese" level kinda high on this? Too high? All comments welcomed and appreciated - thanks for looking!
This is a great one!
