A Jacket for Jet & A Colorful Poodle

I had a great day in the studio today! After I straightened out the mess with my website about paypal not working for the notecards - how frustrating! And google has locked me out of my original "Daily Painting" group, so I had to start a new one without access to the email addresses of the existing membership - so join again!! Forward this to anyone you think would be interested - let's get this list going again!

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JET

Black Labrador
Search & Rescue Dog
Original Oil Painting 6" x 4"

This is Jet - a Search & Rescue Dog with D.A.W.G.S

After I completed the painting, Chris, his handler, reminded me that I was going to add the jacket :) - So he gets two days of being dog of the day!

The orange of the jacket really makes it 'pop' - a big improvement over the original. Probably why I meant to do it in the first place LOL

Thank you, Chris, Jet and all the other handlers & dogs out there that spend so much time and money to save us from harm.

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I also got a quite a bit of work done on the poodle. I am doing this as a surprise for my husband's 80+ year old aunt. I am not sure how adventurous her taste in art is, but I love this painting. This little guy was "Spiffy" - and he passed away a few months ago. Normally, I start out very
colorful like this, and then tone it down with layers of more muted colors. I remember a famous equine artist said that "people want a painting of their horse, not my impression of their horse" He would go so far as to bring his paints out into the field to exactly match the horse's hair.

"Spiffy" 12"x16" Oil on Canvas
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I do try to make the paintings more colorful, but very realistic. You can't tell on the internet, but my paintings have a lot more color than the actual animal has. I feel that this gives the aura of life to the painted surface. As I was painting Spiffy's portrait, I felt that his personality was shining through. Although I met him during his last months, he still had a wonderful personality, although he had slowed down quite a bit. I really hope that she likes the painting as colorful as it is. If not, I will tone it down and make it more realistic. It's just paint :) I'll paint my dog like this, and then I can keep it!

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The light was not good when I took this photo, the painting is not as dark as it appears here. I should get the background in while the paint is still wet, but I'm really tired and wanted to get this up on the 'net before I called it a night.

I have another project beginning to take form in my mind. I'll tell you more as I have more information.