Oils Again

Back in November of 2017 in Linseed Oil Memories, a post on my art blog, Artsy, about my Mom teaching me to oil paint while I was in high school, I wrote this: If I were asked, “What’s your favorite art medium?” I’d answer, “Oils.” Yet, I haven’t done it for years. Hoping to encourage my Inner Artist to try it again, I asked Santa for oil painting supplies and, with the help of my wife, Muri, I received a wooden artist’s box and easel, along with an assortment of paints and brushes. Yes even a bottle of linseed oil and a can of turpentine. But as November 2018 rolled around, my art supplies were still sitting unused in my office. I needed … if you’ll pardon the expression … a kick in the ass which came from my daughter, Amy. One November afternoon when we were talking on the phone, she asked, Would you want to paint watercolors of my dogs for me for Christmas? Although I paint quite a lot in watercolors, my work tends to be on the impressionistic side in part because I don’t have the patience to do a lot of details in watercolors. So, before I could think, I said, How about if I do them in oils? After all, I’d painted two kittens sixty years ago. It’s like riding a bike, right?

I had her send me some pictures of her dogs, Roxy (a Toto-like mixed breed), Darla (a King Charles Cavalier, and Agnes (a jet black golden doodle) and I bought three small canvases and sketched her dogs on them in charcoal as my Mom taught me so many years ago. Encouraged that the sketches actually looked like her dogs, I broke out my oil paints and started to paint. Between the usual pre-holiday chaos and some back pain that slowed it all down to an old guy pace, I knew I wouldn’t finish them, but I was able to send her a draft of all three. And this week, I finished Roxy, who is my favorite (shh, don’t tell the others). And here she is.

I will post the others as I finish them. And, by the way, the grandkids got a tan golden doodle puppy for Christmas, so I’ll have one more to paint. Best of all, my office smells like linseed oil. Very nostalgic.

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Tags: dogs, family, nostalgia, oil painting, pets

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