Thursday, March 19, 2009

Pretty please?


This is one of my "children", Gala. She is now the middle child (we just adopted a kitten). As you can tell, she is a bit spoiled and has mastered the art of what I call "Bambi Eyes", you know... the kind that will tear your heart to shreds when she looks at you while lying on your pillow (and drewling on it) as if saying "do you really want me to leave? but I loooooove you! Let's cuddle instead!". So, on one of those days I took some pictures and used them to create this.

Gala is a wonderful subject to paint, she sleeps like a log (as long as she is cuddling with you) and doesn't care about the camera, the noise, or anything else. This is the second time I paint her, and I must confess, this is my favorite (I wasn't really happy with the first one). This dog has the most beautiful and expressive eyes, I'm not sure if I was able to capture them (I hope I did).

I painted this a couple of days ago, on one seating... I hadn't painted anything for quite a while, I hadn't even logged on or checked other friends blogs...this whole applying for shows thing and rejection letters have been tough on me. I've never been very secure (specially about my work) and honestly I sometimes feel like all of this is futile, like I keep waiting for Godot... and running out of ways to keep the silence at bay. This is why I chose Gala for my subject. Dogs are unconditional love, absolute acceptace. There are no ailments of the soul that cannot be cured by a slobbery kiss; she always puts a smile on my face, so it was very easy to feel comfortable painting her, not think about the results (or the next juried show, or the next gallery, or the next, the next, the next...) and just enjoy reproducing her lovely face.

4 comments:

Kathleen Krucoff said...

Hi Marilyn,

Nice of you to share one of your furry companions with us. I love dogs too and they always have a way to brighten our days.

Hang in there with applying for shows. We all go through that. I've thought about posting on the topic of 'Self-Doubt'...don't we all deal with that evil beast? You just have to keep on doing what you love and know that your time will come.

Kathleen Krucoff said...

Hello again Marilyn,

Just wanted to let you know that I have nominated you for a lemonade award; details at my blog: http://kathleenkrucoff.blogspot.com/2009/03/another-lemonade-award.html

Jennyfer Méndez said...

Lovely Gala!...I'm surprised, in a very good way. You became an artist.. a really good one. Congratulations, fron the botton of my heart. God bless you

Mark Landes said...

I was looking through my old blog postings and saw you had visited. I may not have responded at that time. I like your art and don't think too much about acceptance of you paintings into shows, just keep doing them with conviction and you won't even have to apply one day - they will come to you. As we all know - there is not enough GOOD art and so we need to just keep working so out art becomes better and maybe even good. SInce you are from Venezuale I bet you are pretty.