spaazlicious

Mandy's portrait of kids has arrived and has been hung on the wall in our bedroom. Her beautiful, incredible work is very hard to photograph because the layers of oil pencil (?) are created upon layers of shellac. Not sure what the tech term of exactly what this clear hard gloss is, but I like to say "shellac."

Please pardon my poor photography. This portrait is based on this picture, a photo I snapped two weeks after Belu had come to live with us. It documents Tahoe's dawning realisation that Belu wasn't just another foster dog and wasn't going to be moving on. Quite a moment, now writ extra large.



The lines are just wonderful, and I think this piece really highlights the striking difference between the rounder puppy-lines of Belu's face and the more angular graceful lines of the adult whippet form of Tahoe. And of course he is a gorgeous specimen of the form, if the proud mommy does say so.



Pardon the glare from the center of his forehead, I think that's just the light of his blesséd nature shinin' through.



Here is a detail of his eyes, looking at Belu.



Something I love about Mandy's work are those aforementioned layers. I invite you all to come to my house and stand on our computer desk to tilt your head back and forth to see them...it is a very subtle almost 3-D effect. This is a close-up of his brow. The damn camera flattens them all out to one layer, but the lines, I tell you, I love the lines.



Here's an example of the rich muddle of colour shading which is darker at the bottom and lightens moving up the portrait, still overlaid with Moore's signature calligraphic-style scribbles in a (dare I say?) "spaazlicious orange," a motif which continues the width and length of the portrait. It looks reddish-pink in the pics, but orangey in front of me. And of course, the sig of the great artist herself.



Again, there's that pesky glare of glory. ;)