“Nia and Texas”
This is my third attempt to do a painting of Nia, a white tigress that lives at PrideRock Wildlife Refuge.
In the first two painting attempts, I left the background white, the same as the hair between the stripes. On this painting, I made the background dark and about the same darkness (called value in artistic lingo) as the stripes. However, the background is a cool dark blue and the stripes are really a warm dark brown.
The unusual thing about this painting is that our dog, Texas (a big chocolate lab), paid me one of the highest compliments that I have ever received for one of my paintings.
It is my custom in doing a painting to let the painting “cool off” for a day or two while I decide whether or not something needs to be done to finish it. I generally will put the painting in a temporary mat and place it somewhere where I can look at for a day or two before making the final corrections or additions.
One of my favorite places to put a new painting in the “cooling off period” is in the family room on the hearth in front of the fireplace door grilles. The hearth is about sixteen inches high and wide enough to place the painting.
Day before yesterday, when I had finished this painting and had it in a temporary mat, I went downstairs and placed it on the hearth in front of the fireplace. It was about time for the evening news to come on TV, so I walked through the kitchen where my wife, Corinne, was preparing the evening meal. Our dog, Texas, was in the kitchen with Corinne. He follows her everywhere she goes.
About the time I had Katie on for the TV news, all hell broke loose in the family room. (Corinne was going through the family room, with Texas following, to check on the laundry in the utility room.) Texas, trotting by the hearth, had spotted this painting of Nia and was in full alarm bark with his hair on his back standing straight up.
He would try to get up close enough to smell it and then jump back and go back into full alarm bark. He was convinced that there was a tiger in our fireplace looking at him. Corinne got worried that he might attack the painting. After about twenty minutes we convinced him that it was just a painting and not a real tiger; however, he still has reservations and will not go near it even now.
Now this dog has seen hundreds of my drawings and paintings of animals before on this hearth over the last few years and never paid much attention to them. But he thought this one was a real live tiger.
Since I like my drawings and paintings to be realistic, I guess he paid me about as high a compliment as I can get.
Cheers,
Acree
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