Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Dogs and Newfound Objects

                                                "Elliott" Mixed Media on Paper 16" x 20"

I love the coming of summer days. Winter in Minnesota can be quite long, even if it is a short one. This year Spring came sooner than usual so it was a blessing in my neck of the woods.

With the nice weather, my daughter Jessie has been taking our corgi for a walk almost daily. She has such a keen eye to look for objects that I can use in my art while she is walking. She knows exactly what I like; rusty, worn, forgotten or tossed metal that has been run over by cars. I came home from work today and she had found an old rusty paint can lid that some of the metal has completely rusted away. I am getting quite the collection. I am working on some collage work with these found objects and will be posting them soon.

For now I have been working a lot on the urban dogs. This one is our corgi Elliott. He absolutely loves to walk and is really such a great companion. I am sure he wonders what Jessie (his mom) is doing with all these found object she has been picking up and plucking in her bag!

Well those found objects are finding their way into some of my recent work, which I will be posting shortly.




Friday, June 16, 2017

More Dog Art

I love all dogs. I am a dog mamma. That's it.

I own four Chihuahuas and a Corgi (who his mamma is actually my daughters, so I am termed his "grand mamma"

Every day I come home from work, I am exhausted with both of course the working, but also the strongest desire that I needed to paint or collage all day, yet could not. What is also exhausting or should I say, overwhelming, is all I have to do before I can get to my art. Most nights I wish as soon as I walk in the door, hold each of my Chihuahuas individually, Loretta usually gets her way and is the first to be held, change clothes and get to my art.

One evening my daughter (who owns the Corgi) showed me a video with a chihuahua and an Italian Greyhound. I absolutely fell in love with the Italian Greyhound!

I had done some previous work on an earlier dog series my Boho Dogs, and had done an Italian Greyhound as one of the first few here,

                                     "Italian Greyhound" Pastel on Rives BFK Paper 22" x 30"

and later on when I started my Urban Collage Dogs series I of course, had to do an Italian Greyhound again.

My Urban Collage Dogs consist of handmade and store bought collage papers, acrylic paint, stenciling and pens on watercolor paper.


                                        "Italian Greyhound" Mixed Media on Paper 16" x 20"

I can say I love my pastel dogs but as I have been doing more collage work, these collage dogs are becoming addicting! The ripping up the paper whether they are store bought or hand made are desirable in itself! This one I also used a piece of punchinella on the chest. I think in time I will be adding more elements to these. Only time will tell.