Story time: These pieces were not just labors of love for my pups but also for my grandmother. My maternal gramma was also an artist. While I was in high school finding my love for art, she was rediscovering hers. She had to put art aside for a long time to raise kids and run a business. We spent a lot of time talking about art together, trading techniques and critiques. When I got into MIAD, she took me shopping for my first “real” paint brushes.
My gramma’s specialty was watercolor portraits. In 2010 she wanted to practice painting fur as she was getting requests for pet portraits. She used my two dogs as practice subjects. I love these pieces and proudly hung them on my wall. Fast forward many years and we now have two different dogs and Gramma is gone. I’ve wanted to do portraits for our current dogs for years. At first I put it aside because Gramma was still alive but could no longer paint. I wasn’t ready to confront losing that special connection to her so I put it off. Then I was grieving her and couldn’t face this project.
I’ve been hanging more artwork at the new house (can I still say new after two years?) and I pushed myself to work on these so I could hang all my pet art all at once. I added to my dog portraits, a drawing of my box turtle Barnee who I had for about 30 years. I’m happy to see all my pets in one place everyday. It brings a smile to my face.
