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An Artist's Specialty

By: AndrewS Land

She was able to get her first dog when this female painter was eight. That same year, the small Boston terrier died but it left the young girl with a lasting impression. It is today that her life is made more significant by noble pets. An accomplished painter is what she is and her specialty is dog portraits.

Sunday afternoons have been spent by her reading every dog book and magazine she could find whenever she is in the public library. A professional dog handler showing dogs in trials and dog shows was what she hoped to become during her early years. Drawing and sketching the animals, at 13 she spent most of her free time going to dog shows. What a friend encouraged her to do at 16 was not only make portraits of dogs but also painting with oils.

Even if she can paint landscapes, sea scapes, abstracts, and other subjects pretty well, it was a personal choice when it comes to her specialization. Early in her career, she made and sold a number of dog portraits and this told her that her decision was the right one. In the beginning, the subjects for her portraits were the dogs owned by members of the family. A local pet shop did not only put up a notice about her paintings but also displayed a picture she made of their own Boston terrier.

Credited by her are two paintings for a large measure of her progress. In her first painting was charlie black which is a mesmerizing little mongrel restored by the animal humane association to health and adopted as a mascot. The other painting was of the handsome champion phantom of the ice flue, the Alaskan malamute.

Considering a Labrador retriever, the important assets are the head and expression. Considering a black dog, getting a photograph of it is hard but painting it is even harder. What was unusual was the painting she made of the statue of a jacket found in Tutankhamen's tomb. In the background she painted appropriate Egyptian symbols.

When it comes to the portraits, some people ask her to make one of other pets like horses. The help she gets from her husband is both tangible and psychological. For her he made a specially designed table that holds her paints and brushes. Showing her work, she uses the specially crafted easels and display stands she made and stained herself. Her largest portrait ever was a three by four foot portrait of a Labrador.

Compared with the longer coated ones, smoother dogs are easier to paint. She does not pose the dogs. No dog can ever hold its head just right when it comes to this. She usually spends an hour or so observing the animal, however, so that she can remember his typical stance, the sheen and color of his coat, or those personality or character traits that are evident. What people agree upon are her skills in terms of being able to record these traits onto a canvas.

What she does is work with the snapshots provided by the owners. If the owner cannot provide her with a picture to use then she can take one herself and then blow it up on the screen. I paint for the people, I let them choose the background and things like that. Sometimes, one chooses sceneries and then others choose plain ones. A portrait a month is what she works on considering family commitments. She does housework and takes vacations every now and then.

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When she wanted to get her first dog, this female painter was eight. Within that same year the small Boston terrier died but it was able to make a lasting impression on the girl.

You can get resources on pet portrait paintings by visiting this site.Learn more on the topic of portraits of pets.

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