funny who becomes the muse....

while working on the portrait of 'fox' i can't help but think about the saddest portrait i have done to date, a border collie named 'zack' and his owner...the client contacted me regarding a portrait of her border collie...she told me that her and her husband had been interested in commissioning a portrait for some time...nothing unusual about that except that she told me that her husband had died suddenly a couple of weeks prior to her call...the portrait was to commemorate her husband and his dog...while she was telling the story about how he died, i had a flash of what the painting would look like...it's funny because all the while i was working on the painting, i felt the presence of her husband next to me...kind of eerie and reassuring at the same time...i feel the same presence while working on my current painting of 'fox' which could explain why the work is going along at a quick pace...

here's the painting of 'zack'...his dad is the in the photo under his paw...