Skip to main content

Commissions are interesting endeavors. A bespoke painting often means an artist is asked to create something quite different from their regular body of work. It pushes us a bit outside ourselves. Without fail I find it refreshing and deeply rewarding.

Some artists specialize in pet portraits. I enjoy doing figure studies and portraits of people but until now I had not painted anyone's pet. "Gizmo" is the Maltese-Yorkie companion of Katie Ruth Williams. And like many diminutive creatures, his personality can barely be contained. This bite-sized Napoleon strives to rule the household. I can't say how successful he is at that but I do know Gizmo is loved.

Such a subject deserves a portrait. I wanted Gizmo's likeness to be larger than life—more than double his size—and grand as an Elvis on velvet. Thanks to snapshots by his adoring family, I had plenty of references from which to work. This piece was pure joy. I look forward to many others.

"Gizmo"
18x24 canvas
linen and gilded wood frame
Watch the time lapse of this piece here: https://vimeo.com/282868521

Popular posts from this blog

"Practice makes better" is what we tell the five-year-old. When the child is older, I will explain (and repeat) the 10,000-hours-towards-mastery concept. I don't believe in Perfection. Mastery allows for experimentation to continue and recognizes two important things: the time one must invest in order to improve and that failure is a necessary part of achieving success. Portrait painting has been the most difficult thing I've attempted. It's positively baffling to me. I can't work from one photo. Working from life is ideal, but my current subject (my grandmother) is no longer living. A wall of photos of a person from different angles, different decades (like I'm some sort of stalker) is better for me simply because a single photo rarely captures a personality.* I believe a painting of someone can express who a person truly is by combining impressions from many, many moments. *Of course there are master photographers who CAN capture the essence of
Read more
A New Portrait Ever since my grandmother Frances passed away I have been thinking about her portrait. I knew I would do one at some point when I felt ready. Ready in this instance means that she stopped appearing in my dreams. It has been a year since I've seen her while I've slept. People look different in heaven. It skews my ability to represent them as they were before. I'm not trying to weird you out, it's simply how it is with me. It is impossible to show how I go about this portrait without revealing quite a bit about Frances, and of course, myself as well.  Tant pis.  We'll try to bear it. I will post photographs at the end of a painting session to show progress with some mention of the decisions made along the way. It is my hope to demonstrate the mental exercises an artist goes through, a few practical techniques of putting paint down, but most of all, the amount of time it takes to create something in paint. I chose my panel back in the summer. I
Post a Comment
Read more