A Tall Drink of Water

Nothin' but a Hound Dog ©2009 Karen Mathison Schmidt
6 x 6 • acrylic on Gessobord
gloss varnish for protection and easy cleaning • sold unframed

SOLD • private collection, Poway, California

Meet our Blue. He’s a Redbone Coonhound mix who looks way different from his other immediate family. We figure there must have been something besides Redbone somewhere in a previous generation.


Remember this little tyke? Well, just look at him now - five months old tomorrow and already taller than his dad.



He passed mom up weeks ago, and he doesn’t show any signs of stopping yet. Here he is hanging out with mom Matilda on the back steps:


His basic personality is about as laid back as a hound can get, but he has no trouble keeping up with extremely exuberant sibling Sophie when the occasion calls for it.


He’s nothin’ but a hound dog, and we love him to pieces! By the way, 90% of the proceeds from this auction will go toward the purchase of large amounts of Puppy Chow. And Milk Bones. And rawhide chew bones. And probably a new collar, because Blue is fast outgrowing the one he has on now.

Here are some work in progress photos of the painting -- I was doing really good there for a while, stopping to take progress pix, but then I got into "the zone" so there's a big leap from the last photo to the final painting!






and here's a close-up detail:

Sophie!

Sophie ©2008 by Karen Mathison Schmidt
6 x 6 • acrylic on Gessobord
SOLD • private collection, Poway, California

Here's our Sophie, in all her fauve-a-listic splendor! I didn't intend at the beginning for this painting to be so fauve-ish (i.e. wildly colorful), but somewhere along the line the subject started to demand it. She's just so ... well ... enthusiastic! I know, I know, what puppy isn't?

Here are some progress photos:

First, I sketched her in blue colored pencil, then went over my pencil sketch with ivory black. I love this preliminary sketching ... seeing what I can do with different line weights and washes:



Next, I blocked in some color glazes:



Usually at this point I go ahead get the eyes to an almost finished state, because once you get the eyes right, that's 78-93% of the battle of making a good portrait. I just made that statistic up, but it seems true for me!



Next, adding more color detail and developing the highlights and textures ... and emphasizing the outlines in a few places, just to add a little interest:




Here are some close details of the finished painting:


I love Sophie's eyes ... they're so dark that they look black most of the time. I had fun trying to hold her still long enough to see those little color flecks in them!





And now for some photos of our actual subject!



All together now - aaawwwww!

And here are some from before she grew into her Dumbo ears:




Mmmmmm ... I think this must be a Yum Yum tree!