Boxer portrait and a little tuition

 

Boxer - Charleigh Bear - 20" x 16" oil on canvas

I was approached by Charleigh's owner, Louise Hitchen, shortly after CB's tragic loss giving birth to a litter of puppies.  Unsurprisingly Louise was in a terrible state having lost her 'baby' and wanted a fitting tribute to her lovely girl. 

I think it goes without saying that as an artist in this situation, the responsibility to create an accurate memorial, both in physical appearance and in character, weighs heavily.

Louise supplied me with a lovely, professionally taken photograph as shown below:

You will notice that I have changed the reflections in her eyes quite considerably which may surprise some. The reason for this is that although it looks very appealing in the photograph, when put into painting form, if I had kept them as they are shown here, they would have appeared lifeless - you can't always paint exactly what you see in a photo.

Here is the first WIP

As CB was a brindle, the painting in of the black hairs takes a long time to prevent them just looked 'daubed' on. 

The second and final WIP is shown below:

You can see one side of the face is finished here and the other side is at the 'undercoat' stage. I  fractionally altered the amount of visible 'third eyelid' in her right (as you look at it) eye and decided to leave out her back as I didn't feel it added anything to the painting and drew attention away from her eyes. 

I am of course delighted that Louise is thrilled with Charleigh's portrait  (despite it causing a few tears) and also pleased to report that because of the dedicated hand-rearing and wonderful care given by Louise,  the whole of CB's litter survived and have grown into strong, healthy puppies all now in their new homes. All except for two that is - they have been kept to become Louise's very own loved and spoilt babies.

If you would like to commission a painting of your own pet, please email me at info@azpaintings.com or click on the 'shop' button in the menu above and go to the 'commissioning a painting' page.

Boxer dog - Ch Sulez Blackmagic

Boxer - Ch Sulez Blackmagic

20" x 16" watercolour on Saunders Wateford NOT paper

Another head study, this time of a beautiful boxer bitch, Ch Sulez Blackmagic. Magic has won more awards than I have time to list! Needless to say she is the top winning brindle boxer in UK history. This another dog who I have painted that I  have had the pleasure of meeting. For those who wonder about the temperaments of show dogs, I would just like to let you know that this bitch on meeting me, tried to climb on my lap to kiss me. I would have let her but she was rather big and I was trying to paint at the same time! She was a real sweetheart but on this occasion she just had to make do with having a fuss made of her instead!

To commission a pet portrait please email me at info@azpaintings.com for more information or visit www.azpaintings.com

The Drinking Fountain by Anne Zoutsos

The Drinking Fountain by Anne Zoutsos - 10" x 8" oil on hardboard/masonite

When we lived in London the local parks where we used to walk our girls (dogs!) were Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens (in fact these are in effect one park, separated by a road but under which you can walk from one to the other). You could in those days walk your dogs off leash and I'm pretty sure this is still the case. In fact I heard, although I have no idea whether it is true or not, that the Queen has said that as long as she reigns, dogs will be allowed off-leash in Royal Parks. I hope it is true - she certainly does love dogs! We used to take long walks in these lovely parks and in the summer the dogs would get thirsty. They would sometimes swim in the Serpentine - and drink from it - but also a favourite place to drink was a drinking fountain in Kensington Gardens. No-one ever minded and in fact people would always laugh to see them enjoying the spurt of water when we pressed the button.

When I saw this photograph it reminded me of those happy days and so I had to paint it. I hope you will enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

10% donation to Old Dog Haven - always in need of funds to help them help older dogs live out their senior years surrounded by loving care.


SOLD

This painting is straight off the easel and will need to dry for several days before it can be shipped


My thanks to Robert Pogorzelskia for releasing the reference photograph under Creative Commons