Artistic Is Her Middle Name

The difference between human portraiture and animal portrait painting is that while humans don't mind posing, most animals do. An artist has to exert a lot of effort to get and capture an animal's attention. One female artist from Wilmington specializes in this particular field. She is one of those who belong to the Delaware family tree. She has a grandfather who painted a collection of sea and landscape paintings which became quite well known. It does not surprise us that this artist began painting at a very young age of 3.

It was mostly animals that she drew. After a one man show she had at the local library at age 10, she began illustrating books for children at age 12. Thanks to her famous Philadelphia teachers, she became acquainted with the world of dance. She continued to do solo dance for a good number of years, one of her most memorable performances being a death scene where she accidentally took a mouthful of kerosene from a lamp.

She paints a lot of animal portraits, but painting man's best friend the dog is her main focus. When you see the way she start work on a dog's portrait, you can't help but feel interested. She makes many sketches while the dog's owner hopefully and helpfully tries to hold the dog still, or at least in a position somewhat similar from minute to minute.

The movements of her pencil are a blur as she tries to find the best pose for the model. While doing this, she constantly converses with the dog and compliments him. She uses all kinds of props, even tidbits of food to hold the animal's interest. She gathers photos of the dog from the owner, and also asks the owner if it is possible to duplicate the pictures for her collection. Snips from the ears, tail, and tummy are collected from the dog so that she can determine the colors to use. These snips are kept for each dog's file.

Afterwards, she concerns herself with the pose of the dog and the composition with a suitable background. A composition is selected based on the type of dog or animal. To create the background of a Chesapeake Bay retriever portrait, she sat in a duck blind and made sketches of the surroundings.

She finds animals as well as people have their own opinions. One story that shows how true this was was when an American pointer snuck up behind an artist and then chewed up her painting. It must have been a terrible painting if he had to get some form of medical treatment after showing his disapproval.

If she does portraits of beagles or bassets, she puts in a paw print along with the scenery and puts the kennel club's identifying symbols on the back. Her own dog helped in even creating abstract backgrounds. Cooperation is not something animals frequently show. Painting was put to end for the day when one of the models ran off with a female dog. This may seem like an ordinary thing, but it does make one wonder if the unusual always happens while an animal's portrait is being painted.