30 x 40

Oil on Linen

Gray Shadow Frame

This painting I love because of the idyllic place. Beach, one cloud, not too hot for a flow skirt and then a sweet dog. The reason I have a small black dog in so many of my paintings is he is the perfect little piece of negative space. I used to have a black cat in my paintings for so many years because we had a black cat we adored. So the small dog is based on my personal one, but only because he makes such an amazing anchoring object for paintings of the figures. One of my favorite artists is Kees Van Dongen and he has a painting with a dog that has always inspired me, Parisian Lady, 1910, that hangs at the Virgnia Museum here in Richmond and I think I just pick up things from other artists and it sometimes just surprises me. I have always thought of that painting and used to go and see it a lot but not in many years but never thought of it in relation to my own work until now, which is pretty cool and makes these descriptions so fun to write. There are a few paintings in this show that the same painting has inspired I think.