January 2021 (3)

 My January practise for "Portraits"  

Eight years ago an ex-colleague, Alyson, asked me to paint portraits of her current dog, Fergus and one that had unfortunately died, Brock.  She wanted two pictures, one of their faces and one of them both running.  She was only able to let me have hard copy photos and she particularly wanted the two "running dogs" to be included in the photo of Brock running in Scotland where he died.  I told her I could not do the portraits but she persisted and sent me more photos by post.  I again refused.

Last year whilst moving my art stuff into the shed I came across her letter and photos, and as she has not been too well recently I saved them and wondered if I could do anything with them.  When Rose sent me her old photo for the blog it reminded me of them and so I set the January subject as "a portrait" thinking it might spur me on to do at least the dog's faces.  After a struggle I managed it and then sketched a few ideas for the "running dogs".  Steve told me I would never make it work, which was "red rag to a bull" and I decided to try.  Below are the photos I used (most of those she sent were of no use) and the final paintings, which are in acrylic on canvas board 12" x 10".  

I have to thank Lesley C for her valuable suggestions that I adjust the background behind Brock, in the "running dogs"; and also her suggestion to crop the "heads" portrait, that I have not done.  I agree with Lesley's comments that backgrounds are boring in portraits and that the dogs chests draw the viewers attention away from their faces but I think that if I leave it, and if Alyson likes it enough to frame it, she can choose how and where she crops.  However, I did amend the background and the dogs chests slightly so that they were not quite so prominent.  

Another "arty" friend, Jean, suggested I separate the two "running dogs" to create more pictorial space (for which I thank her) and although I agree with her point, I am not sure that it would improve the picture compositionally.   It also seemed a difficult change to do on the existing picture so I thought it better to start another painting.  I eventually decided that although another picture would be good practise for me, I had originally liked the idea of the dogs running close together and almost "spilling over" each other. Also I am currently decorating and don't really want to start another painting at the moment so I have left it as it is, which is probably a "cop out"!    Both Jean and Lesley were contacted by email.

These two photos were used for the heads, the first picture is of Brock:

These are the running dog photos, again the first picture is of Brock:

Here are my paintings:

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