Pet Portraits

Edie, 17 x 21, Watercolor on Paper, copyright 2008 Pat Aube Gray
Click on photo to see enlargement.

Unfortunately, this is a posthumous portrait of Edie, an adorable long-haired dachsund who succumbed to cancer. Edie was the much loved pet of my doctor, and Edie's death was very upsetting to her. I hope that this portrait will serve to keep Edie's memory alive every day that it hangs in the doctor's home. Edie was so loved and so missed that the family has already brought home a new long-haired dacshund to love.

I used hand made watercolor paper by Twin Rocker, a paper I learned about years ago form Stephen Scott Young, a fabulous and very successful watercolorist. It has a harder surface than Arches, for example, and I really enjoy working on it. Hot pressed paper is too hard for most of the work I do, but this cold pressed paper seems to be just the right degree of hardness. Lifting is fairly easy, but you can still glaze with it and not lift the layers below. I recently watched a video about Twin Rocker and found it very interesting. A young couple started the company and has found a niche in a market rife with machine made products. They make many different kinds of paper, in many different sizes, some with deckled edges such as the piece I used for the above painting. For more information, go to www.twinrocker.com