Hiking with Four Dogs

Every Friday one of my girlfriend's and I get together for coffee. We each usually bring a dog or two,

Today we each showed up with two dogs. One of her dogs is a ten month old Aussie Shepherd. I had two year old Drew and twenty week old Faith. Hum...three young dogs is a mixture for disaster.

They were trying to play with each other instead of walking. At some point I tried to take a photo with my cell phone while holding two leashes.....photo attached.

The end result was no wiped out dog walkers and four tired puppy dogs.

Happy New Year!

Secord dogs

I was training our puppy, Faith, in our bathroom using treats. The bathroom is sectioned off from the dogs because our cat box is in there. For those of you who own both dogs and cats....no further explanation is needed.

So, before bedtime Faith goes in the with me and plays. For pups, I use a lot of food rewards when training (which we will graduate away from as they get older). Love and cuddles are are great training tool for the older ones. We had an audience during our training don't cha think!! ha ha

Miniature Schnauzer

This little girl is a Miniature Schnauzer and her portrait was a Christmas present. The recipients were very surprised when given the painting. They said it looked just like her and they could not believe how realistic the painting is.

If you are interested in commissioning a portrait of a dog as a gift, I do have gift certificates available. For more information on commissioning a portrait please click here: http://www.dawnsecord.com/commissioninformation.html

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Rich and baby Faith

Rich and I decided to get Faith and have her be our Christmas present to each other. Do you think my husband likes his present?

jewel and monet

Jewel and Monet had a very busy Christmas day. Like most of us...they are exhausted!

Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!!

This model is our new puppy, Faith. She turned 18 weeks old yesterday. We've been working on "stay" and "wait" for her modeling career. My dogs are used for models for my paintings and it is never too early to start teaching them.

I put Faith under the tree with no decorations and no ribbon on her and told her to "wait". It took just a few tries to get the idea into her baby mind. Then I put the gifts around the tree and the bow around her neck.

All was going well until our young cat, Lacey, decided to get under the tree while we were taking photos. I took over 100 photos and Faith got up only twice (once enticed by the tricky feline).

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

Tuxedo Kittens in Oil

This larger than life painting of two tuxedo kittens was done in oil. It is another piece for the corporate commission that I am working on.

The painting is three feet wide by two feet tall. A number of photos of the two kittens were supplied by the collector. One kitten has a narrower face as in a Siamese and the other kitten has a round face. The markings are very close so I relied on the face shape to assist me in keeping track of which kitten was in each photo. Ultimately, I chose two poses that were from two different photos.

My initial sketch was in pencil. If you notice the eyes on the sketch and look at the final painting - there was some adjustment done to the eye shape during the painting process. I sometimes flip my paintings upside down during the process to double check details. It was during one of these "upside down" times that I noticed the eye shape was not what I wanted it to be. One nice thing about painting in oil is the ability to change just about anything during the course of the painting. Pastels are not quite so user friendly!

Thanks for taking a peek at the kittens!

It was a lot of fun to paint.

Texas Boathouse

This is the final painting in the landscape series I've been working on. It is the boat house at Eagle's Nest Preserve in North Texas. The painting is to be a gift for my dearest friend's parents.

The interesting part of the painting was the current in the water around the boathouse. If you look across the lake you'll notice the water is still. I could have changed the painting and had all the water still and reflective - but the movement of the water was one of the things that made this reference material so interesting.

The painting started with a colorful under painting of pastel glazed with turpenoid. The turpenoid allowed the pastel to become liquid much like I have done with acrylic and watercolor under paintings. Once the under painting dried the layering of pastel began working from top to bottom.

The pastel under painting included the use of salmon hues in some areas, blues, purples and greens. The goal was to have some of the under painting shine through the finished painting in key locations. In some areas I wanted a complimentary color to show - such as salmon under green. In other areas I used deep purple under the foliage and water to create a feeling of depth. There was to be a lot of green reflections in the water so I chose to have a green under painting for the water.

Thank you for taking a peek!