As I saw this image in the digital camera viewer, I thought “that’s a painting!” Our puppy Bo was just 12 weeks old.
We were playing with my nieces on the big lawn out at my folks. Even as a little waggly, curious puppy, he already had this way of making intense eye contact. I see right into his little doggy soul in this image. I am sure that he has our previous dog, BJ’s spirit – he so happily came back to us! There’s no way to prove or disprove this and believing it makes me so happy too.
This painting is intimate. It needed to be small I framed it with a wide mat bringing the eye right into his eyes. Painting eyes is quite amazing. I paint what I see in the reference photo. At first it’s shapes and colors. As I soften edges, responding to the niggling that tells me something isn’t quite right and boom – there it is.
They are no longer painted, they are real. The incredible mystery of art.
June 2012 – 11″x15″ – Watercolor on paper
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