Our Standard Schnauzer

This painting started as a family joke. Kafka, our schnauzer, is a perfectly well-behaved dog until he sees either cats, picas or squirrels. The later seem to flip him into another channel! Standing is his favorite position once he has spotted one. Because I am teaching a basic painting class at Richmond Art Center, I wanted to do this painting completely from references. Thus began a series of life sketches (all interrupted because he is 16 months old and barely able to stand still), diagrams of his muscle system, and a value study followed by a color study. By the time I grabbed this small (20 x 16") canvas, I was feeling much more comfortable working from photos. A friend gave me permission to base the background on a photo of El Sobrante Ridge, and I painted the squirrel from memory. It has this tinge of magic realism, which is what I was going for.

The Background

Sometimes I am more interested in what's happening behind the scenes than in the foreground. I think it has to do with the need to feel some kind of release after my attention has been focused on rendering accurate depictions of a model or object. I did a series of ink drawings in our figure drawing lab (this is the best one) showing what I can see beyond the model, and they were fun.

Paris, Las Vegas

Since I haven't yet gone to the real Paris, I reasoned, Paris Las Vegas, the hotel, will do. I stationed myself at a corner wedged between the hotel wall and the fountain. The fountain was inspired on the one at the Place de la Concorde, which in turn was inspired on the ones at Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican. Nothing is new.

The falling water's roar was almost unbearable, and the mist made everything colder. In short, I was in my element, so I started painting, happy to be away from cigarette smoke and protected from the maddening crowds. Andrea Bocelli's voice reached me from across the street and thick traffic, and suddenly, the heads of every passer-by turned to face its origin. The huge fountain at the Bellagio had been activated.

I could now focus on the problem at hand. After the pencil drawing I could see the statues would steal the show, but I wanted to fight against my tendency to include too much background detail. Even though they occupied most of the space in the 12 x 12" Aquarello (Cartiera Magnani) sheet, I knew that the manner in which I treated the background would "make or break" this picture. So I asked myself: What do I simplify, and how do I do it?

I omitted most of the people walking within my line of view. I could not rely on spectators staying there long enough for me to paint them. I also used a purple wash over all of the background, except for the sky. Speaking of the sky, I left out the majority of the clouds, too wispy and white to make it in this "battle of the values." Finally, I left out some signs on the street which I thought would be distracting.

My approach varies. Sometimes I do the background first, sometimes the foreground. Sometimes I work on both simultaneously, especially if I am not yet sure of whether there will be enough contrast. In this picture, I did exactly that. It was a cold palette, reflective of the cold day it was.