Post #673824 by Gwen on Tue, Apr 9, 2013 10:24 AM

I am a painter by trade, mainly specializing in portraits of animals. My own three dogs are my particular muses, and I have painted them again and again. The guy featured here is Boo, and this triptych is destined to hang over our dining room table, as part of our campaign to make our home into a midcentury/tiki/generally cool oasis. My intent here is to have Boo present as a sort of tiki himself- iconic and god like. Each panel measures 16" x 31", and when they are really hung I will be positioning them an inch or so apart. As you can see, I have just started on the one on the left. I will be continuing work on it today, getting the background roughed in. It is oil paint, so am waiting for the paint to dry on the tiki dude himself before I can go in and start refining him.
Gotta confess that I swiped a good part of the background treatment from a Mark Ryden tiki painting. It was too perfect for my purposes and I could not resist. I take some small comfort from the knowledge that Ryden's painting is itself derivative of mid century exotica paintings... in any event, I wouldn't do such a thing for something I was going to sell, but since it is for myself...
p.s. there is surface glare on the chin area of the tiki on the right. Doesn't look like that in real life.

[ Edited by: Gwen 2013-04-09 11:00 ]