Poppy - Belgian Sheepdog

The Belgian Sheepdog wears several different coats, this black one being the handsome Groenendael. These intelligent, beautiful dogs served in war time as guard dogs and Red Cross dogs, and now they excel at Agility.
A black dog is a challenge to paint, and I have enjoyed the challenge of painting this fellow in watercolour. Poppy is an 8 x 10 watercolour on Arches 140 hot press watercolour paper.

Mini-Monday - Front Door

Hope everyone's Monday is off to a good start. Today I'm showing you the front door of the Mini-House. One's front door says a lot about the people who live in the house - it's sort of the welcoming committee to anyone approaching, so the front door has to make a statement.
I decided I wanted a solid, traditional door with a touch of elegance. Naturally, the door that went with the doll house kit just wasn't right, so I set about doing my own door. Ignorance is bliss.
I settled on a door with a curved top and a stained glass window. What was I thinking?!!! I cut out a square door to fit the doorway opening, and then cut the curve out of that. Before I left this step, I cut a window into the door. To make the frame for the door, I had to do the side pieces and the curved top pieces to fit the door. I used a light wood to do this - the sort of stuff you find in hobby shops. It's not at all decent wood, but at this stage, it is what I am comfortable working with. It took several tries to get it right, and about the time I was ready to scream and abandon the project, I got something I felt I could use.
Next, I cut and glued "boards" to one side of the door to make it look more substantial and to give it an older look. It was hard getting the wooden pieces I used to fit to the curve at the top, but eventually it more or less came together.
The window was next. I cut a tiny piece of clear plastic (saved from packaging) to fit the window frame, then painted daffodils down the middle (on the back of the plastic) for the stained glass effect. It was glued along the edged to the front of the window so that you see the painted daffs through the plastic. I glued a matching piece of clear plastic to the back of the window, and then framed both sides.
The door was given a bit of carving - not one of my strong points, at least so far, and then painted to resemble mahogany. The last steps were to make a "brass" door handle out of a bit of twist tie painted gold and to glue a foot plate - a bit of shiny gold ribbon, at the bottom. Then I attached the door to the frame with paper hinges.
The surround was made from built up wood painted grey and the bas-relief over the door, stating the year the house was built (1575), the Tudor roses, the initial of the knight (T for Thorn) and his crest - a wolf's head, was done in clay, then baked, painted, and glued in place. The doorstep is a piece of tile that I bought at the DIY store.
No part of this little house is perfect. I've seen perfect miniatures, and I marvel at them. I am going to do things as best I can at this stage and enjoy the creativity rather than aim for perfecting one item at a time. I could spend years attempting that, and look at the fun I'd miss!

Mini Monday - Bricks & Mortar

Monday again, and another installment of my Mini adventures. I decided I wanted my house to be built of brick, a building medium that was just coming into vogue in the late Tudor era. To achieve this, I painted a sheet of mat board with several layers of various brick colours ( acrylics) until I got a pinkish brick that I liked. Then I set it aside while I painted the bare wooden house pieces with a coat of gesso, and then a pale grey.
I decided to start with the foundation stones at the bottom, and to make them, I cut out pieces of mat board in appropriate shapes and sizes, covered each one with glue, and them smushed bits of paper towel into/onto the surface to create a rough texture. After letting them dry, I painted them first in grey acrylic, and then sponged on a mix of light ochre and pale grey. When they were totally dry, I glued them onto the base of the walls.
Now it was time to cut and past each individual brick into place. This took HOURS! Days!! As you can see, the house is in three sections. There were times I lost the rhythm of the lines of brick and had to remove a row and start again. I began to wonder who's bright idea it was to do a brick house before I had finished gluing that last brick in place.
I added some grey mortar between the bricks that was a mix of grey paint stiffened with some glue, but it was not as successful as I had hoped. Still not sure the best way this could be done, but I decided that what I have is fine until I learn a better way.
Then I put the kit windows together, painted the frames black, added "leaded" window clings to the "glass" and popped them into the window frames.
Now it was time for the decorative trim around the main front window and the door, and for the door itself, but you will have to check in next week to find out how I did that.

Mini-Monday

As some of you know, I have become enthralled with the hobby of making Miniatures. Long ago, (but as an adult) I was given a doll house kit and my Father was supposed to make it for me so I could start a miniature collection. No one ever convinced him that he was supposed to do this, and years later, I finally decided to give it a go by myself. This is what the pieces looked like when I took them out of the intimidatingly big box. I should have started taking photos at that point, but I never imagined that I would get very far, so I didn't.
What you are looking at in the photo is the upper floor and part of the roof. They are the only parts left undecorated. I thought that on Mondays - Mini-Mondays - I would show you bit by bit, how the house is coming along, both the construction, and the all too often destruction. There's a lot of that.
I gave my house a name - The Laurels, after my Grandmother's family home back in Ireland. It was meant to be a rather large, three part ranch house, but I am transforming it into a modern day house that was built in the Tudor times and decorated in various eras after that. In the history that I have made up for the house, Queen Elizabeth the First gave the house and land to one of her knights as a reward for his loyalty and bravery. Yes, I get really invovled with my fantasies! :-0
So I invite you to come along on Mondays and watch as I bring The Laurels to life.

HORSE!!!

The Canadian Museum of Civilization has a wonderful exhibit on now about THE HORSE. Naturally we went as soon as were able. This exhibit opens with the tiny, dog-sized creature that eventually became the large, noble horse. As we stepped into further the hall, there was a wonderful diorama of three stages of the horse's development. Did you know that they were once leaf browsers and had longer necks and short teeth? When they moved to a plains environment, their necks grew a little shorter and their teeth elongated to cope with the coarse grass. Short teeth would have worn out fast on the grasses they now ate. The whole "horse experience" was heightened by the sound of whinnies and hoofbeats all around you.
The Horse subject is so vast that it is only natural that not everything could possibly be covered. What was done, was presented with respect and a depth of knowledge, and although we were somewhat disappointed that there wasn't more of the exhibit, we thoroughly enjoyed what there was. At the very end, like a breath of West wind, the wonderful band of Joe Fafard horses (metal sculpture) galloped across the end of the hall, colourfully lit so that the herd doubled in size against the backdrop. Great stuff!!
Naturally, I now feel the need to return to horses for a couple of paintings before I get back to my dog art. This little 5 x 7 coloured pencil Friesian is called EVENING STAR. I love to do the Baroque horses in a fantasy medieval setting. It is available matted, for $98.00, shipping and tax included. Inquiries may come to me at anderson.animalart@sympatico.ca

Dinosaur Week

This past week, I spent an hour a day doing art lessons with a Grade Three class. It's been a long time since I was in a classroom, but I remembered that Dinosaurs were always a hit. I decided to see how the children did, making a little model Dinosaur Habitat, complete with a Dinosaur of their choice. I got a cardboard base ready for each child, then we talked about Dinosaurs and their world, I gave them instructions and examples, talked about the difference in a scientific project where everything had to be correct, versus an art project such as we were doing, where they could add some imagination, and off they went. The children had to listen carefully, do each step in order, measure, draw, cut, paste, and assemble their Habitat, and they did SO well! I drew simple, cartoony dinosaurs for them, but they had to try new-to-them coloured pencil techniques, decide on colours (I mean, who knows what colour those Dinos were!), then choose how close to the lines they wanted to cut. They also had the option of doing their own Dinosaur from start to finish, but most children chose to use the pre-drawn ones. Look at the individual creativity that went into these . . .do you see the dino-footprints in the top photo, and the swampy areas in the bottom right one? Someone decided on a magnificent volcanic erruption in his model, and many of the children managed to get very real expressions on their Dino faces.

I could have put all 23 images up here, but had to choose just a few. Every one of the 23 projects is an A+ Well done Grade Three!!

Horses In My Life

A few weeks ago, our City newspaper, The Ottawa Citizen, asked readers to send in their (short)stories about how horses impacted their lives. This was to help publicize the opening of a major exhibit, THE HORSE at the Museum of Civilization, and several of the stories would be chosen for publication in the Saturday paper.
Well, I was thrilled to discover last Saturday, that my story had made the cut, and there it was, in the Ottawa Citizen. I'd like to share it with you.
"Being a horse crazy child, I often played at being a horse, pretending to have the freedom and power of these gorgeous animals. I read about them, wrote stories about them, drew them all over my school books, the walls, or on any available paper, and dreamed of having a horse of my own. That dream was realized as an adult when I bought a wonderful, middle-aged Morgan whom I named Ceilidh (Kaylee). Together, we made life-long friends and had marvelous adventures. We were together until his death at age 33.
Horses have made a huge difference in my life. Ceilidh and the other horses at the barn, expanded my understanding of kindness, patience, and the quietness of the soul. They gave me confidence in myself. They inspired me to a career path of painting and writing about horses and dogs, and that has taken me places I never even dreamed of. They have enriched my life in every way, and even on a bad day, just seeing a horse can make me smile."
Although I did not send in the above image, I think it is an appropriate one to use here to illustrate this blog, as it is about the Horse in legend and story, and is the panel I did for the Horse Gift Mural, a truly amazing project that I was privileged to be part of.