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:

Look what happened last summer!

Aaaagh! How can so much time go by so fast? And again it's almost 2 weeks since my last post.

Anyway, just wanted to catch you up on a major happening that occurred during my vacation from blogging a while back ...

PUPPIES!

Our Matilda had her puppies and instead of many puppies, as we were predicting from her belly size, she had 3 huge ones. Two male, one female. They are very fast becoming out and out dawgs, but here are some old pictures:


Here’s Sophie.



Just look at these little guys, the folds of skin, the floppy ears ... I love em! The one on the left is Blue - named by one of the vet techs who work for our veterinarian - because he has the most awesomely beautiful blue eyes.

The one on the right is Jack, who used to be known as Micky because of his rolls upon rolls of skin, reminding us of the Michelin Man. This is one of the last pictures I have of him, because shortly after this he went to his new home with our painter, Charlie, and his wife. Charlie used to raise beagles, and he and his wife recently lost a 14-year-old Pomeranian, but Charlie says he's always wanted a hound dog his whole life, so they adopted this little guy, and their granddaughter promptly named him Jack. A very fitting name, I think.


Here’s Blue again. Doing what he does best: following a scent. We have no idea where his color came from. Maybe he has a Weimeraner somewhere in his bloodline.



And here are some even older pics:


I love this one. That’s Sophie up by Matilda’s head, Blue in the middle grabbing a snack, and Jack napping under Mom’s hind legs.



After 2 or 3 weeks, Matilda would give me this look, like, ”Now tell me again, how long do I have to keep this up?”

Don't worry Matilda. When this is all over we’ll take you for a little operation so you won’t have to do this again ... you can spend the rest of your life playing. And eating. And sleeping. And treeing squirrels and raccoons. And playing some more.

And now for some more recent photos:


Psssst ... hey, it’s the paparazzi again ...



CHEESE!