Chiko and Tina

This is the second commission I donated to the Chilliwack SPCA at their annual Paws For a Cause event. It was awarded to Roz Miller for her successful fundraising efforts last year for this worthy cause . Her chihuahua and dachshund, both rescues, posed beautifully for Roz's excellent reference photo, making this portrait a special joy to paint. I really like the high contrast lighting, and the contrasting brilliance on white and black fur. To see this painting in its earlier stages as a work in progress, and Roz receiving this award, see my Facebook Page entries dated from January 7 to January 13. 

Schatzy

Every September, the SPCA in B.C. holds its annual main fund raising event, the popular walkathon Paws for a Cause. While significant funds are raised this way, other volunteer SPCA advocates are busy on their own raising awareness and considerable revenue throughout the year. I was asked by Chilliwack SPCA manager, Ivanna Ferris, if I would donate pet portrait gift certificates as part of the annual award package to this area's two top fundraisers, to be presented at Paws for a Cause. It was, therefore, a privilege to help honor Juanita with this portrait of her sweet little Schatzy. Thank you SPCA for the important work you do, and thank you Juanita and others for helping make this possible.

Colorful Kitten

This kitten went through some interesting stages before completion. I chose the image from a royalty-free photo image site online as I needed a subject to demonstrate my painting ability at an SPCA fund raising event. For some time now, I've been using an under painting technique similar to that used by oil painters, called glazing. I could simply paint this brown and grey kitten brown and grey, but the fur becomes so much richer if I start with other colors first, such as in this case, blues, mauves and pinks. I got some comments from curious onlookers who must have assumed that I had a pretty unique take on reality! In hindsight, I ought to have taken some pictures of the earlier stages to show how very differently this painting started out. 
And then there was that ear, the larger one in the foreground; it seems that every painting teaches me something. Working in a public setting, I was bound to get distracted, and so I did when using a particularly staining green background pigment. Later I saw that the green had seeped into the ear area, and was there forever. This wasn't and area where colorful glazing was going to work.

Lesson 1. Don't use staining pigments when you might get distracted!

I was able to cover the problem with a bleedproof white gouache product, sort of like white-out for artists. I would only use this in emergencies, and don't use it very often, but how great to have it on hand for times like this. I was able to paint over it, and now I can't even tell where the trouble area was.

Lesson 2. Watercolor mistakes CAN be corrected!

Paint and learn, paint and learn...............

My Sweet Pie

Of all the pets that I have painted, for nearly 15 years, Friskey was my favorite special friend. I am surprised that it took me this long to finally paint her. She was a close companion especially in that we shared a great love of books, she being an enthusiastic book sitter. This made reading rather awkward, but we did spend a lot of time together in that old wing back chair. She could be counted on to find the best sun beam, and had the most soothing maternal purr. Her son, the orange tabby Orville, has made his way into several of my paintings, including Journeys Through Bookland, and Catnap in China. Doing this painting brought back a lot of memories, and I do miss my old friend, my Sweet Pie.

Jenny

Jenny is our 11 year old rescued greyhound who we have had for three years. A track winner in her day, she can still run faster than most dogs if she wants to. But she doesn't want to. A trip to the off leash dog park will finding her schmoozing with the people, while the other dogs run and play. I had her certified with St Johns Ambulance as a therapy dog, and for a year and a half made we made weekly visits to a seniors home where she was a good fit. She is a senior herself, after all. It is not commonly known what an excellent pet greyhounds make. They are especially quiet, gentle and make few demands of your time. In spite of their reputation as performance athletes, they are not at all high strung, nor do they require huge amounts of exercise. One of the oldest breeds, they have proven their value as a companion to man. If you are interested in learning more about greyhounds, look for books by Cynthia Branigan, such as Adopting the Racing Greyhound.  Her website here tells more. We adopted Jenny from GRA in Ontario.

Not So Far Away

I just love this pose of JB, comfortably leaning on his elbow(?) not unlike some people I know. If I had accidentally called him JR (as in JR Ewing), I wouldn't have been too far wrong. And yes, there's a story. There's always a story.

One day a while back, I got a nice email from Corinne, someone I didn't know. It seems she had travelled to Vancouver from her home near Dallas Texas sometime last fall. There she met someone that I also didn't know who had seen my paintings in a gallery in Ontario late last summer. Somehow pet portraiture came up in their conversation, and I was mentioned. Once home, Corinne emailed me, asking if I would paint a commerative portrait of her and husband Dave's late orange tabby, JB.

So from Ontario to Vancouver to Texas to Ontario and finally a painting delivered to Texas. Is is just me, or is the world getting smaller?

Sushi

This commission was done for Sonya, my supervisor at work, as a Christmas gift for her neighbour Sheila who owned Sushi. One of the challenges of this painting was to realistically depict the depth and intensity of the very dark fur, as well as capturing the detail of the light fur without it looking washed out.

Shanty

My cousin Heather asked me to do this commission of Shanty, in her memory. A great family dog, Shanty loved to go out on the sailboat, and run along the beach with Heather's boys, Cameron and Stewart. In fact, the photo that this painting was based upon, was taken just after one such west coast run. Ultimately, however, she was Heather's dog, and I was honored to paint this tribute to a beloved canine friend.

Catnap In China

Moments like this don't come along very often. It's one thing to arrange teacups, but quite another to pose a cat. So when I chanced upon Orville as he is seen here, I had to find the camera fast.
My goal in this painting was to capture the glow of the sunbeam, as well as the warmth of the areas in shadow.

The Workshop

I had been asked to give a one day instructional workshop to members of the Brant Visual Artists' Guild to be held in St George. There would be between 15 and 20 intermediate level adult watercolour students in attendance, all of them strangers. Although challenged by the offer, as this would be my first workshop, I felt confident that I could do it since I have always liked to teach.

The topic would be pet portraiture. I broke down the steps taken to paint the Zephyr portrait (shown in the previous post) and would use this painting as my main teaching example. But a couple of days before the event, it occurred to me that some students might prefer to paint a cat instead of a dog. I quickly decided to add a kitten photo from a royalty free website. This was fortunate, since the kitten was the preferred choice of many. I have noticed that artists and cats (and avid readers) often go together.

I have heard that the definition of an expert is a person in the room that knows more about a subject than anyone else. Here I was showing others what I had learned, and being treated as an expert on the topic............ Who, me?!......... Perhaps I had more to offer on that topic than the others, but 'expert' is a relative concept. So often I hear teachers say that they learn so much from their students, and it is true. We all learn from each other, and there is still so much to learn. I was just showing what I had acquired up to this point on my artistic journey.

And it was a thrill.

Thanks Pam, and members of the BVAG.

Oh Zephyr!

Our time raising Zephyr for the National Service Dogs was quickly coming to an end. (See the blog post of Aug 30 2007). We had trained and nurtured him for nearly a year and a half, and he thought of himself as part of the family. We nearly did as well, but we held on to the belief that his was a more noble future. Knowing that we would only have him for a few more weeks, I took him out for a photo shoot. As usual, he happily obliged, and this portrait is the result.

There had been the usual puppy mishaps, the inevitable slipper chewing, the house training accidents and the like. But as he grew, we discovered that he was becoming a very strong dog, and was generally more excitable than his peers. Great strength combined with over excitability are not traits sought after for service dogs, and we became concerned. Sure enough, only two weeks into his four month professional training, we were informed that Zephyr had been "released from the program". Did we want to keep him? We could cover the cost that he had incurred to the service organization, such as vet fees, and he would be ours. Or we could pass him along to another group, and with little hesitation, we agreed that he should be given another try. For the second time, we said our good-byes as he went off to school, this time the Lions Club Guide Dogs of Canada. We had hopes that with the chance of training for one of their four categories of service (seeing, hearing, physical, and seizure) he would soon find his place.

I always said that Zephyr was a 'boomerang' dog due to his great ability to retrieve, but I hadn't expected that to also mean that he would keep on bouncing back to us. We were informed that he did not have the right stuff for Guide Dogs either. Better, perhaps, but still short of the mark.

As I write this in March 2009, Zephyr is on his third try. His retrieving skills may be his salvation, since, based on his enthusiasm and tenacity in ball retrieval, he easily passed the qualification trials for yet another school. He is now training with the Canada Border Services Agency to become a 'sniffer' dog of contraband goods. I am optimistic about this match...we'll see.............................

Katie and Raffles

After the studio tour, I slipped once again into a season without painting. First came the simultaneous training at two new part time jobs, then an illness, surgery and slow recovery. My dad suggested I paint while convalescing, but I just wasn't up for it. Although not physically demanding, painting takes mental energy, something like a chess game. Watching old movies was more my speed. Finally, in the fall, after a couple of trips away, I was ready for a fresh start.

A co-worker had seen my blog, and asked me to paint her aunt's two cats. This would be my first double portrait. Intended as a gift for Christmas, I had plenty of time to work on it, which was great because my time now had become so limited.

Katie, the tortoise shell, and the "marmalade" Raffles, are not friendly towards each other. Their posing together was not likely to happen, and to complicate it further, Robyn had to slip the reference photos to me without detection from her aunt, this being a surprise gift. It was a new challenge for me to coordinate the scale of the two images, crop and arrange the subjects into a unified piece.

I was struck by how similar these two cats were with our own, Friskey and Orville, shown in the photo.

Santana

Mark and Robin adopted this regal Belgian Shepherd cross from the London SPCA when Cassie and Hayley were very young. True to his shepherd calling, he faithfully watched over the children, keeping them safe by cottage lake or backyard pool. A loyal companion for fourteen years, the family will miss him this Christmas.

Chocolate Chunk

At 89 pounds, Chunky is one big chunk of chocolate lab. Labrador Retreivers come in three colours: yellow, black, and brown, which is known officially as chocolate. Jan and her family in Ingersoll really have their hands full with this very active and large one year old.

Lighting does interesting things to a solid colour, and I found it facinating to work with such suprisingly rich colour and shade variations.

Sambuca

When Mark John and Nanette got Sambuca as a kitten, they had no idea how large she would become. Long and lean, she is one of the largest short hair cats their vet has ever seen. Although rather shy, she is no stranger to the comforts of a cozy bed. With this painting, it was important to capture the many colours reflected in her jet black fur: blue, red, purple and green.

Bluejay

At my first studio tour exhibit, I was offered a commission to paint Deborah and Don's cocker spaniel. Gone, but certainly not forgotten, Bluejay's silky fur was so black that it had beautiful blue highlights. I enlarged a small portion of a good snapshot of Bluejay, and completed the painting by working quickly and steadily over the next couple of days . As it would happen, only hours after completion, I was emailed a much clearer image of him with the suggestion that this photo might be easier to work from. Deborah was very surprised that I had already tackled and completed my assignment. We arranged a time in the following week to get together. Meanwhile, I wondered how the painting would have turned out if I had worked from the second image. Finally, a couple of days before they arrived, I decided to give it a try. I think they were surprised to be offered a choice between two paintings. After some consideration, they chose the second one. Which one would you have chosen?

Montana

Montana, or Tana, is a Golden Retreiver owned by a Lisa, good friend of mine. I chose this pose to paint due to the sweet, alert expression that she had. Like most of her breed, she has proven to be a great family pet. Here was one time that she didn't have her favorite chew toy in her mouth!

Mitsy

This painting was done in memory of Dave and Esther's sweet cocker spainel poodle cross, Mitsy. Right from the start, she was a good fit for the family. She was a young adult when they got her, and she proved how bright she was on their first walk together, when she knew exactly which house was their's going home. She was a very special friend to their son, Paul.

The National Service Dog

A few years ago, while at a freeway service center, I noticed someone with a puppy at the food court. This puppy, although small, was wearing a jacket such as those worn by working guide dogs. I learned that this puppy was in training; becoming familiar with many indoor public locations in preparation for the full time training he would receive from professionals before becoming a full fledged service dog. The puppy raiser would only have the dog for just over a year, and several months later would be invited to attend it's graduation and meet the dog's new owner. I made a mental note at the time that puppy raising was something that I would like to do.

A couple of years later, my son and I attended an open house for Guide Dogs in Oakville, and learned more about this facinating service. Demonstrations were given to show what these fully trained dogs were capable of doing to assist their owner, be they blind, deaf, or quadraplegic. At the time, we did not have a suitable home for puppy raising, and so it remained a dream.

And then, a series of connected events occured over the summer; the dog show in July got me thinking of dogs again, a chance meeting with a guide dog owner in early August informed me of another service dog school which was closer to home, and wouldn't you know it, their annual open house was to be held the following weekend. Of course we went, and two days later we had our seven week old service puppy. Zephyr. A Labrador/Golden Retreiver cross. Cute, smart, and teething. And not house broken. We suddenly had our hands full.

The National Service Dog organization trains dogs to work with children with autism. Their dogs have been very successful in helping keep these children safe, as well as calming them, which allows them to focus in class, and to better interact with others. As a puppy raiser, I see that Zephyr gets out to lots of public venues, and experiences a wide range of things. I take him to obedience class taught through the organization, and follow up with daily practice. And for a little over a year, he is with us to enjoy. And paint. This painting was done from a picture taken the first day we got him.