Furry Friends

Who is always glad to see you when you come home?

Who doesn't care if you forgot to brush your hair?

Who would still lavish love upon you if didn't bother to bathe for a month?

The answer of course is your pets!

There is nothing like the love of an animal to set the world right, and make your day seem brighter.

I know I love my pets, and I miss the ones I've lost.  I was privileged to have a little dog named Daisy in my life for a few years, but about a year ago she vanished.  We suspect she met her end at the jaws of the coyotes that frequent our property.

I was very heart broken over her loss, and not even being able to bury her or have her cremated made it even harder, but one thing that made it easier was that before she passed on I had immortalized her in a portrait which hangs in an honored place in my home, I feel its a fitting memorial to the little dog who brought our family so much joy.

I've also painted a portrait of my other dog, Spunky.  It hangs directly on the other side of the window from Daisy's portrait.

In addition I've had the privilege of painting portraits for other pet owners, some who have lost their pets, and some who simply want to honor their living pets with a custom painted portrait.  Most of these commissions have been arranged in person, either with friends, or with people who come by my booth at art walks and outdoor markets.  But I also arrange these special works through my Etsy Store.  The basset hound you see below is another example of one of my pet portraits.  I also do other commissions, following the basic price list of the pet portraits.

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Working, working, working....

So, I've been continuing to work on my art pieces.  I finished an abstract yesterday VERY late at night, and I finished another pet portrait today.

The pet portrait was of a cat named Biz Biz, I got the photo, which was taken from a cell phone, so it wasn't the highest quality picture.  I made due though, I started with this:

Well, right away I decided to crop the image, and focus more on Biz Biz's face.  Here is the cropped picture:

Then to help me see the subtle nuances of the colors, I cranked up the saturation on the photo:

Then I was ready to sketch and paint, and the result was this:

The title doesn't show all the way on that preview, it is "Biz Biz Another Green Eyed Tiger".

As I mentioned before, I also completed an abstract last night.  I had been looking at lots of Kandinksy's work earlier in the day, because of seeing a friend's work that reminded me of Kandinsky.  So I combined the bright colors that I had been seeing in Kandinsky's work, with the the type of abstract pattern designs I use in a lot of my abstracts.  The result was "Tranquility", named such because that is how I felt while creating it... tranquil.

 

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I Haven't Vanished from Planet Earth!

Just wanted to drop in quickly and let anyone who happens to read this now and again know that I am still around.  I haven't posted for a while, but I've been busy creating.  Since my last post I've painted two portraits of pets and started one more, plus completed an abstract work, varnished several paintings, ruined one canvas in a painting that turned out to be a "flop" in my opinion... though I may salvage the canvas by Gesso-ing over the disaster.  Also, with the help of one of my best friends I've built three displays for my paintings to hang on during the upcoming artwalk, and have started painting those displays.

That, plus every day life, and I just haven't gotten to the blog for a few days.

So here is my abstract:


And here is one of my pet portraits:



Very soon I hope to post photos of the displays my friend and I built.  (Okay, seriously, he did most of the building while I did really useful things like hold the drill and misplace tools! Though I DID drill some holes to start screws, and I also did hold some wood still while he sawed.  I also painted the surfaces of the displays.)

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My Freedom Series

I'm sure if you've read the past several posts, you've noticed a lot of bald eagles in my sketchbook.  That is because I am working on a series of paintings I am calling my "Freedom Series".  I'm not sure how many I will paint in the series, but the first two are finished.

The first one I call Freedom's Hope, and its a bald eagle, symbol of Freedom for so many, looking up to the maker, continuing to hope in good times and in trials, as Americans have done since the birth of our nation.

And the next one I call "Freedom's Pride", it depicts a A bald Eagle, symbol of American freedom and pride, perched on a branch overlooking part of the beautiful Puget Sound.

While I haven't decided yet how many will be in this series, I do know that I'll do a few more, however, before I do I'm going to do a few pet portraits, in preparation for an upcoming art walk where I plan to advertise that service.

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