Progressive Paintings

She was able to get her first dog when this female painter was eight. A lasting impression was made by the small Boston terrier on the young girl before it died that same year. Nowadays, noble pets have a significant role in her life. Specializing in dog portraits, she is one accomplished painter.

Many Sunday afternoons have been spent by her in the public library where she goes through every dog book and magazine she could find. It was during this time when she aimed to be a professional dog handler showing dogs in trials and dog shows. Going to different dog shows, at 13 this is where most of her free time was spent drawing and sketching the animals. She was about 16 when a friend introduced her to oil paintings and encouraged her to make dog portraits.

In terms of her specialty, this is something she chose despite her skills in painting abstracts, sea scapes, landscapes, and other subjects. The reason why she felt that she made the right decision was the fact that she had made and sold numerous dog portraits early on. In the beginning, the subjects for her portraits were the dogs owned by members of the family. She did a picture of their own Boston terrier and this was displayed by a local pet shop after they put up a notice about her paintings.

There are two paintings she credits for a large measure of her progress. An adorable little mongrel restored by the animal humane association to health and adopted as a mascot named charlie black was what her first painting was of. What the second painting pictured was the champion phantom of the ice flue, a striking Alaskan malamute.

The head not to mention the expression are very important assets when it comes to a Labrador retriever. A black dog is hard to photograph but when it comes to painting one, it is even harder. One of her paintings was of the statue of a jacket found in Tutankhamen's tomb and it was unusual. She did paint Egyptian symbols in the background.

She also paints other kinds of pets when requested, like horses for example. The help she gets from her husband is both tangible and psychological. He came up with a specially designed table that holds her paints and brushes. Whenever she shows her work, she uses the specially crafted easels and display stands she made and stained herself. It was a three by four foot portrait of a Labrador which was her biggest portrait.

The smoother dogs are easier to paint than those with longer coats. She does not pose the dogs. Holding their heads just right will be a challenge for the dogs. What she does with the animal is observe it for an hour and this is so that she can remember its typical stance not to mention its sheen and the color of its coat plus the personality or character traits that it shows. She is rather talented as people say in recording such traits onto a canvas.

What she does is work with the snapshots provided by the owners. When an owner is not able to give her a picture than she takes one herself and then blow it up on the screen. When it comes to backgrounds and such, the people she paints for chooses the details. For some, they like sceneries while the rest want it plain. Due to family commitments, she is only able to do a portrait a month. Every now and then she takes vacations or does housework.

This site teaches you about painted pet portraits. Here is further info on pet paintings.