Another Pet Portrait

 Last time, I showed you a small painting I did of Soozzee one of our two little Shih Tzus, who passed away about a year and a half ago.  I just did one of her sister, Indy, who passed away just under three years ago.  Both paintings are 16"x12".  

It turned out pretty well, I think.  We'll let these two paintings dry for a bit, then I'll varnish them both and get some frames, and they'll hang here in the house somewhere.  It'll be nice to have portraits of our two daughters always with us.

Pet Portraits

 Say "pet portraits" and I roll my eyes.  Let's just say that I've never had much respect for artworks of animals in general.  Why paint lions or tigers?  About all the dogs and cats I'd seen were over-sentimentalized.  And most of the works have about as much life in them as a doorknob.  So when I stumbled across the work of Jennifer Gennari (on Instagram: @jen_art), it was a surprise.  Here was somebody who took a classical painting approach to her subjects and really made them alive.  These aren't "pet portraits", they're portraits of individuals who happen to be dogs or cats, and they have tremendous personality.  Here's a sample:

 

This is a beautiful painting.  The brushwork is lively and loose, but accurate.  The colors have variety.  The dog has personality.  It's well done in every respect.  And as the former daddy to two Shih Tzus, this particular painting resonated with me for both style and subject. 

As I discussed in a previous post, I'd just done a painting in the style of another artist.  One of the things that I learned was that I didn't want to work in that particular tight style.  Jennifer's painting was much more in the way that I'd rather work.  So rather than copy her painting, I thought I'd try her approach using my own reference photos.  And here's what the result was:

That's my little Soozzee, who passed away about a year and a half ago.  I still miss her, along with her sister who's been gone for almost three years.  (Guess what my next painting will be ...)

So what did I learn here?  A portrait is a portrait, regardless of the subject.  A painting is either good, or it's not, again regardless of the subject.  I really like working in a loose, wet-into-wet manner, where the brushstrokes, corrections, mistakes, and process are visible.  And doing an artwork of a critter can be rewarding.

Looking at Artists: Constance Bosworth

I stumbled across an interesting artist tonight.  I spotted an article about an artist, Constance Bosworth, who does paintings about weddings.  This is a subject that is in my ballpark now.  However, she doesn't do live paintings of the ceremony or reception, like I do.  She paints portraits (which I do, too), but also the wedding cake, bouquets, the bride's dress, and other items related to the event.  That's pretty cool.  Most of that stuff means a lot to somebody for a very short period of time but is then forgotten.  Even when it's immortalized by the photographer, those photos usually wind up in a box, or in a folder on your computer, and rarely if ever seen.  A painting, though, is a different matter.  Paintings tend to get framed and hung on a wall.  Yes, they may become background noise after a while, but they're still being seen on a daily basis, and every once in a while, you stop and look.

Constance had some interesting things to say about what she does and why she does it.  Rather than repeat her comments, here's the link to the article.  Go read it for yourself.

The small images in the article were interesting, so I found her website and took a look.  And I was quite impressed.  Constance knows what she's doing.  She has some very sensitively-done portraits, some beautiful still lifes (and I don't typically care for still lifes), some paintings done as medieval icons, and some companion animal portraits.  That last category got me.  Normally, you say "pet portraits" and I gag.  These, though, are different.  The animals have character, personality, thoughtfulness, and individuality.  They're not just blown-up versions of somebody's snapshots, which is normally the case.  No, they're very carefully considered portraits of some very caring individuals that you would want to know.  They just happen to be hairy and have four legs.

While she's at it, she does some amazing things with little kids.  Now, young kids are hard, at least for me.  Their faces and body proportions are very different from adults.  You can't just shrink an adult and say it's a child because your eyeballs would tell you you're lying.  Constance not only gets them to be children, they're individual children, with their own personalities and identities.  Quite impressive.

Usually, when I do a "Looking at Artists" post, I'll grab an image from their website and post it here so you get an idea of what I'm talking about.  I'm not doing that this time.  Go look at her website, www.constancebosworth.com.  And let me know what you think.