Latest Portrait & Happy Halloween!

As promised, I'm going to start documenting some of my portraits here on the blog. At this time of year, a lot of them are Christmas presents, so I can't put those on line for fear of the recipient finding out - a slim chance, I know, but I don't want to chance it. But it nearly happened once: I almost spoiled a surprise one year during an Art Studios Tour. It was a number of years ago when I didn't have the number of commissions that I do now, so I didn't have as many portraits to display. This one in particular was a gift from one of my clients to her sister. I'd secretly met my client at her sister's house to take photos of her 2 dogs and had started on the portrait. The sister's husband knew about it the gift. Well, both the sister and her husband came to visit me during the Tour but I'd never met them, so as I'm talking to the husband I realize who he is/they are and simultaneously realize (*GASP*) that the in-progress portrait is on display. It wasn't very far along, so it wasn't too obvious, but if she'd looked right at it she would've know that it was her dogs! I was able to calmly sidle over to the portrait and flip it over. The husband realized what I was doing, but I found out later (much to my relief) that the sister hadn't a clue. Boy, was my heart racing! Sure learned a good lesson though. And the sister was very surprised and pleased with the portrait.

So with that said - I CAN release this image of a portrait I just completed. This is one of my "Paintings with Petzazz" - done in watercolor on Yupo (a synthetic paper - more info about it at the "Petzazz" link) of Mac the Gordon Setter. Sadly, I never had the chance to meet this handsome guy, as he'd passed away before I received the commission. The curator of Roseville Arts! asked me to do the painting as a gift for one of her staff members who was leaving. The dog's owner had a pretty good photo of Mac and that's what I used as reference for the portrait. The photo and finished portrait are below. The portrait measures 4"x6".















And now I'd like to wish you a happy Halloween with one of my all-time favorite pumpkin carvings: "Barfy", not a very original name, but it fits! I carved Barfy many years ago, but he still holds a special place in my heart! Yes, I have a strange sense of humor. . .