Bone Dog

Bone Dog

"Bone Dog" - oil on cradled wood panel, 24 x 24 x 1.5.  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder..


The love of a bone dog, she thought, bending her head down over the paw again. All that I am worth these days.  Then again, few humans were truly worth the love of a living dog. Some gifts you could never deserve.” 
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

The studio has gone to the dogs.

We just finished reading Kingfisher's Nettle and Bone, and the rattling run of a bone dog is echoing in my mind and has jumped onto the board.

In the novel, our protagonist is given three impossible tasks in order to secure a means of killing a prince.  One of the tasks is to build a dog of bones.  Which she does.  And the dog romps and cavorts and rattles throughout the novel.   

Have you ever completed an impossible task?  Overcome the un-overcomeable?  Done the thing you didn't believe you could do?  I'll bet you have.    I think we all have bone dogs in our lives - a symbol of our own tenacity, resilience and determination.  With perhaps a little magic, serendipity and the love, support and encouragement of others.  When I think of the things I have done that I didn't believe I could do, I feel a little sparkle.

And so this piece - a dog made of bones - a talisman for the impossible.  Which we know, you and I, is sometimes very possible, likely, probable and ​done.

---

About the art:  beginning with a thickly gesso'd wood panel and an oil pastel sketch of a dog skeleton.  Adding the requisite 80 million layers of oil paint.  Coming over the entire skeleton with thick lime green paint, then scraping away, leaving deposits in the bones.  Adding back the details, allowing paint thinned with Gamsol to run down the piece.  Adding a light pink sky in a thin wash with a rubber brayer.