I’m pleased to reveal my three latest commissions, a trio of dogs named Riley, Jessie and Hatcher.
I delivered these last week to a client in Calgary. Suzanne has hired me before to paint a memorial of a black Lab named Santé.
Each commission has a story, and almost all of them become enjoyable memories, both because of the clients I get to work with and the faces I get to paint.
Santé was memorable because Suzanne knew what she wanted, an action pose based on photos she had taken. The details she wanted me to include were fun to paint, and I learned a lot from that piece.
For this latest commission, Suzanne wanted me to paint three separate portraits of Labrador Retrievers she’s had over the years. She is clearly loyal to the breed.
If pet paintings were my only source of income, I could probably get more than a couple dozen done each year. For reasons I’ve laid out before, however, I only take on two or three.
When I create one of my own paintings, it’s usually because I’ve either gone looking for photos of a specific animal, or I’ve found a shot in my archive that inspires an idea. A look, an expression, or even just the lighting can trigger something.
But the choices are all mine, and there’s usually no deadline. When I finish one of my critter paintings, people either like it or they don’t. They buy prints or license the image, and that’s how I know if it connects with people. If it doesn’t, I just try again.
I don’t owe anybody anything.
Commissions, however, are a different animal. Pun intended.
Every job has challenges, but memorial pieces are especially tough, and Suzanne’s recent commission was more difficult than I expected.
Many of the photos I had to choose from were scans of snapshots from years ago, with the lighting and colour challenges you might expect. These are dogs she’s had throughout her life, and I can honestly say I would have turned down at least one of these paintings if it had been a new client wanting me to paint just that dog.
But Suzanne has been great to work with in the past, and I couldn’t very well say yes to one or two of the three dogs and not the other. There was also no rush.
There were several delays on this one. At first, it was my challenge finding the time to fit it in. But Suzanne was also moving into a newly built home, and when it came time to start, she let the next client on my list jump the queue because she just didn’t have the focus for this while dealing with the move.
I can certainly understand that.
So I painted another commission and came back to Suzanne when I was ready to start.
And still, it took a long time.
Because here’s what I hadn’t really considered. While it seemed like one commission for three dogs, it was still three separate paintings. In practice, that meant three commissions’ worth of painting, decision-making and attention to get them all right.
Suzanne was specific. She gave me some great background on each dog and told me personality traits that definitely helped me create better paintings.
She told me Riley was famous for her side-eye, and that’s how she wanted me to paint her. Since she had the photos to back it up, I was happy to accommodate.
That detail proved especially helpful when it came to painting two dogs who were very close in colour.
When I sent work-in-progress shots, Suzanne helped me correct some features that didn’t quite gel with the dogs I was painting.
If I recall correctly, I originally had Hatcher with a more open-mouth expression, but Suzanne wanted something subtler. She also asked me to change the three vertical portraits to square compositions so they could be displayed together in the spot she had chosen.
As shipping and delivery are included with my commissions, I was happy to drive into Calgary last week and present the finished 12×12 metal prints, ready to hang on the wall. I had offered larger sizes, but that was the size she wanted.
Suzanne has a wonderful art collection. She owns a few other larger paintings I’ve done, but she has also commissioned work from other artists, including a few whose work I know and like.
When I delivered these latest commissions last week, I got a tour of her new home, which meant I also got to see some new art. Talk about a bonus.
In recent years, Suzanne has spent time making little wooden carvings herself. I remember seeing some of her early attempts, which already showed talent, but it was a treat to see a lot of her latest work.
Of course, I was doubly amused because they’re mostly little animals with character of their own.
When I delivered the Santé commission in 2021, I got to meet her new black Lab, River, as a puppy. Last week, I got to meet the energetic adult she’s become and hear about some of her unique personality traits.
I’m fortunate that many people have hired me to paint their pets over the years, and I don’t take that lightly.
Because it’s a custom painting and a significant investment of my time, I know this sort of thing is not an affordable purchase for most people. But for those who enjoy my work and want to see their pet painted in my style, I’m grateful for the opportunity and do my best to exceed their expectations.
At present, I have three clients waiting patiently for their turn. The next two are also previous commission clients, and the third is a family who has been collecting my work at Expo for many years.
I’m looking forward to each of those pieces.
Though I have already agreed to paint two dogs for one of those clients, I shared with Suzanne that after this commission, I’m no longer taking on more than one animal for the same client at the same time.
With these three Labs, I had to work on them at the same time so that when finished, they would look like they belonged together. Had I painted one completely and then moved on to the next, I doubt they would have.
And because one dog already takes a significant amount of time to paint, including all of the back and forth that comes with a commission, taking on several for the same client means everybody else waits much longer.
So going forward, one animal at a time.
As you read this, I will have just emailed the next client to see when they’d like to start.
Cheers,
Patrick
There’s a phenomenon around here that we never quite get used to. When the light is right, often when fog or cloud cover is low in the valley but you can still see the peaks, or at certain times of year from certain viewpoints, the mountains look MASSIVE.
So I went up to Three Sisters by the golf course, down along the Bow River, to Millennium Park, and other places where elk are known to frequent.
This is Quarry Lake, on the road up to the Nordic Centre. It’s a local swimming hole in the summer, with a nearby dog park, and just a lovely place to be. Hard to believe it was once a scarred strip and open-pit coal mining operation.
I stood there for a few minutes and saw an elk lying down about twenty feet away. I hadn’t noticed her until just then. Within a few minutes, giving themselves away by their ear twitches, I realized the whole area was full of elk, most of them lying down in the fall brush.
I eventually spotted him, just munching away on leaves or grass, far enough away that I wasn’t worried. I managed to get the above shot, but it’s unremarkable. Handheld at 300mm, in the shadows. To get the shot I’d really want, I’d have to get too close to be safe.
A few cows were heading into the trees, and I managed to get a couple dozen shots of him before he disappeared into the woods after his harem.
Regardless, I’ll keep chasing the shots.
A new painting finished this week. I now have all the planned images completed for the bear book, plus a few I didn’t expect to finish and include. Now I just need to write some more stories and put it all together in InDesign.
Regardless of which painting ended up on the cover, however, it was always going to be Berkley. I’ve painted her more than any other bear.
