The changes in the season, especially when sudden and rapid, can be exciting. I feel amazed at how much and how fast the colors and textures of the leaves transform. These changes, of course, vary according to the location. The more vibrant colors occur when the weather is dry, sunny and cool. Places that are cloudy, damp or warm do not have as many variations in the colors. Autumnal leaves in vibrant hues are a beautiful part of the season. They will fall off and carpet the earth below with a multi-colored softness and crunchiness, depending on the dampness of the environment. Such leaves come from trees which are deciduous.
In this painting, “Woof – it’s Autumn!”, simply for fun, I captured my excitement about the advent of the new season through the emotions of a dog, a small dog that is happy that autumn has arrived at last. I used acrylic paints on a canvas wrap to capture the colors of autumn and the exuberance of this small dog – a “Pretzel” dog. I do enjoy at times, adding humor to my art and in this case, Pretzel.
Pretzel was, in fact, a real dog – our family dog along with our other pet dogs and a cat. He was maladjusted and anxiety-ridden but so very lovable. I wrote about him in a book titled “Pretzel on Prozac : The Story of an. Immigrant Dog” that is available on Amazon.
So, what were the challenges of writing about a dog? Firstly, I could only imaginatively, enter the mind of my little pet Bichon Frise by basing my assumptions on the behavior I had observed closely in him. Secondly, in terms of this painting, “Woof – it’s Autumn!”, it was simply fun being unabashedly anthropomorphic by imagining the joy experienced by this painted, stand-in for Pretzel (for me, perhaps) on discovering that at last the cooler weather had arrived. After all, I live in the “Valley of the Sun”, Arizona – and so did Pretzel. This year, we had record highs– well over one hundred consecutive days of temperatures that exceeded one hundred degrees!
For this painting, “Woof – it’s Autumn!”, I used mainly earth colors, defined by their intrinsic brownness and mined from the earth. Fortunately, I did not have to mine for paints myself, but selected them instead from my always-at-the-ready acrylic paints standing on shelves in my studio. For contrast, and brightness, I also incorporated lots of yellow and white hues.
Will Pretzel appear in more of my paintings? Yes, I think so.