Bulldog Smile

Watercolor

15"x 22"

$650.00

I guess I need to get another photo of this painting when it comes home. Being 300 lb rough paper, the bumps are showing a shadow that I cannot edit out and hold onto the integrity of the image. Grumble, grumble.

This was the third painting I enter in a show and it won juror's choice award. Boy was I spoiled.

This one was painted while I was caring for my mother-in-law, who had cancer. I was spending months away form my bulldog puppy. My daughter was caring for her in my absence and the dog became the darling of the art school that my daughter was attending.

This is the largest size of paper that I can fit in my suitcase.

There is a lot of wet into wet work here. I think the fluid look of the eyes make the painting. When I took this photo of Maggie she was only three months old. I thought she had that loving look a baby gets when looking at it's mother. Actually her jaw had not grown enough for the fangs to show in the typical bulldog smile. When I had returned home her jaw had protruded and her smile, with teeth, appeared. I drove her nuts trying to get the right photo at the right angle to aid me. I added those teeth last, after the painting could have been done. People believe that watercolor is unforgiving and hard to change. This painting is proof that that is not so.

There is a another bulldog painting that I painted before this one. It also won a Juror's choice award. When ever I exhibited both paintings together 'The Bulldog Smile' would always win over the other one. This week I put this painting in a show that is displaying in our local library and it won first place again. I am not surprised.