For the past three days (bracketing the “Super Tuesday” primary elections) the Mutts Blog at the Baltimore Sun has been running a series of articles answering the question, “If the US presidential candidates where dogs, which breeds would they be?”

• Monday, February 4, the Democratic candidates;
• Tuesday, February 5, the Republican candidate;
• Wednesday, February 6, the “also-rans”;

John Woestendiek, the Sun’s dog blogger asked to use some of my portraits to illustrate his dog blog articles. I was pleased to be asked, as it is a fun look at the candidates and the breeds!

Before you jump over there, let’s have some fun here — here are some of the breeds John chose. Can you guess which candidate inspired his choice of each of these breeds?

Go ahead, take a guess! Then surf on over to The Dog Lover’s Guide to the Presidential Election and see how you did. If you disagree, which would you have chosen?

Visit the archives, too, for great stories for pet lovers. Check the dog blog on Thursday, February 7, for an article about yours truly!

Memorial Portrait of Samson, Golden Retriever, Susan Donley, 2007. Oil Pastel, 9×12 inches. Commissioned Portrait, Private Collection.

Samson’s human dad Joe Mannato called me the day Samson died to commission this portrait. It touched me to become such an integral part of someone’s mourning process.

Besides capturing that winning Golden smile, the challenge with this portrait was to render the wonderful over- and under-tones that make Golden Retriever coats so beautiful. How do these dogs manage to be blonds and redheads simultaneously? It’s Golden magic!

Joe wrote me……on seeing the approval scan I emailed him:

Oh Sue you brought tears to my eyes, it is so incredible. This is a gift tome, so go ahead and post it on your website [before Christmas]. Thank you sooooooo much.  

And after he received the real thing in the mail:

Sue the portrait is amazing! Thank you so much, you brought tears to my ears. I can never truly express how I feel in words.     

I hope the portrait has helped Joe in the healing process by bringing back warm memories of this beautiful dog.

Art details: Sennelier oil pastel on Art Spectrum tinted primed pastel paper. Oil pastel with solvent under-painting.

How did I get to middle age without going through the typical pre-teen horse-drawing stage? As a girl, I was one of the few who didn’t spend rainy “inside recess” days covering sheets of ditto paper (remember “dittos”?!) with drawing after drawing prancing ponies. (I busied myself honing my portrait skills by trying to capture likenesses of the Beatles and other teenybopper idols.)

So, when potential clients have asked me if I do horse portraits, up till now I’ve answered, “Not yet, but I’m sure I can and would be happy to draw yours!” Not exactly confidence-inspiring — I don’t blame them for not being impressed! Most non-artists don’t realize that there isn’t a secret formula for each subject. The secret to successful drawing is being able to see your subject as lines and shapes, lights and darks, colors and textures. The same process applies whether the subject is kitties or kangaroos.

The problem for me, a gal from the suburbs, has been access to horses. That all changed this summer when my brother bought property in the country with barn and pasture, but no horses. His next-door neighbors’ (cousins of ours, as it happens) horses, Raven, Rosa, and Ranger, happily visited the greener grass on the other side of the fence to keep his pasture mowed (and fertilized!). I was delighted to have the chance to have equine subjects at such close hand and gather lots of photos for later portrait-practice.
I recently finished these two portraits of shy Rosa, a full Arabian horse whose lineage includes Ulysses Grant’s horse!) and her son, Ranger, a frisky three-year-old whose sire was a Tennessee Walker.

Now I can finally say, “Yes, I do horse portraits — here are some examples!” But mostly I enjoyed watching their personalities come to life under my hand, especially that Adolescent Grin of Ranger’s! If he weren’t so big, he would look at home in any 7th grade classroom! ;-)

I’ve added Ranger and Rosa to my Cafepress store just in time for Christmas.

Reference photo credits: Rosa’s portrait from a photo by Ed Donley; Ranger’s portrait from a photo by Kithmini N. of Indiana, PA”

I’m often asked “Do you actually draw pets from life?” by pet lovers who wonder what my secret must be to keeping a dog or cat still for the hours it takes to finish a portrait. The only magic I employ for long sittings is the magic of photography. It’s hard enough to get a pet to stay still long enough to take a photo, much less to do a portrait!

I do draw from life, but the detailed drawings drawings I’m known for are not the result (they take 8-10 hours to do)! When I draw from life, I try to capture the lively movement that would drive me crazy if my goal were a detailed portrait. In these sketches (called “gesture drawings” by the artists, for obvious reasons) I quickly try to follow the movement of the animal with the movement of my hand without letting my brain interfere too much. No erasing — I just leave the lines be to record the action. I love looking back at these sketches, since they trigger vivid movie-memories of the live action.

These two drawings of my Standard Poodle Rosie record her chewing a raw knuckle bone with great gusto right beside my desk chair.

I don’t expect anyone else to appreciate them (that’s not the point) and they usually stay snug in my sketchbook. I’m surprised that occasionally someone does respond to them, which made me decide to post some of my favorites here from time to time. If you don’t “get” them, ignore — it’s like trying to read someone else’s notes. If you do “get” them, enjoy!

When Bailey crossed over two weeks ago at the young age of eight, her mom Karen’s friends chipped in together to send their condolences in the form of portrait. What a great way to lend their support while giving Bailey’s people something tangible to recall all the good memories. I was honored to be a part of this heart-warming show of sympathy between friends!

While working on pet portraits, I often wonder about my subjects’ personalities and am grateful when owner tell me stories about their pooches and kitties. If you have a story to share about Bailey, or words of comfort for her family, please feel free to post them in the comment section below. It would mean a lot to them — and to me.

Bloggers United Against Abuse

Today, September 27, a group of bloggers from all over the world are uniting to write posts against abuse — of all kinds. Naturally, I’m choosing animal abuse…

Thanks to Michael Vick, we’ve all had our awareness raised about the abusive “sport” of dog fighting. It’s not hard to see the cruelty that forces dogs — normally friendly, social animals — to turn viciously on each other. Hopefully, getting tough on such a high-profile case will send a message to other dog-fighters.

But what about the low-profile animal abuse that goes on day after day in a backyard near you? Animals chained outside to doghouses — their entire world a 30-foot circle. Crate training turned into crate incarceration. Adolescent puppies turned into shelters for chewing and digging — thrown away just for acting like dogs, because no one has taken the time to train them to behave otherwise. Un-neutered cats dumped to live off the land and bring more uncared-for offspring into the world.

This is the kind of neglectful abuse that keeps the pounds full. Millions of dogs and cats receive capital punishment by lethal injection for the crime of belonging to owners who don’t bother to learn how to be a responsible guardian. For sheer numbers, I’m guessing the victims of this kind of abuse far outnumber the poor pit bulls and greyhounds victimized by organized cruelty of dog fighting and racing.

Because of the pet portrait work I do, I’m very fortunate to deal with folks who love their pets dearly and wouldn’t dream of hurting them. In fact, many of them are quietly working against abuse by taking these neglected and thrown-away creatures into their homes and hearts.

These kind souls don’t make the headlines like Michael Vick, but thank God they are there, working in the shelters and rescue groups, fostering and adopting animal victims of neglectful abuse.

A Bittersweet “Happy” Ending

I was recently commissioned to do a memorial portrait of “Happy,” who was rescued by Jessie Uptigrove. Happy spent the first six months of her life in a cage before her previous owners apparently decided that even a caged dog was too much trouble (please excuse the sarcasm!). Jessie found her at the Forrest County (Arkansas) Humane Society shelter and adopted her. For the rest of her days, “Happy” repaid her with a joyful disposition! It was an honor to do her portrait and now to acknowledge the generosity of her human “mom” Jessie, one of many quietly waging war against animal abuse, one critter at a time.

You can read Happy’s success story on the Forrest County Humane Society’s web site, which was given in memory of Happy. If you knew Happy please feel free to tell us more about here in the comments below. Or if you’d like to acknowledge other workers in the war against animal abuse, honor them here!

Dreyfus is a silver Labradoodle who adopted my cousin Melinda after spending the first few months of his puppyhood neglected in the backyard. Today he is a handsome, well-behaved therapy dog, thanks to his mom’s dedicated training efforts! Nice save, Melinda! :-)

For anyone keeping score, my Poodle-doodle Rosie is Dreyfus’ second cousin. As genealogy buffs, we make a point of knowing these things!

What a pleasant surprise to be tagged by Mihaela Lica’s Online Public Relations blog back in July! I’m sure I’m supposed to have realized this through some automagical trackback or technorati technology, but since I’m a blog newbie (though have been hand-tooling web sites professionally since my first in 1996!), I had no idea until checking my stats now! Thank you, Mihaela, for the kind words:

Sue – at least to give you a link to her amazing site, where she displays the most beautiful pet portraits I’ve ever seen.

So, a month after her August 14 deadline for comments, I respond to Mihaela’s request for instances of pets being used in branding a non-pet business, here are a few I can think of:

• The most famous I can think of is the RCA Victor “His Master’s Voice” logo with a terrier mix named Nipper listening to an old Victrola.
• A more recent one is the Yellow Labrador Retriever pup mascot used in Cottonelle toilet paper ads and packaging here in the US. You can see their web site has a whole section called “Puppy Stuff.”
• The Mack Truck logo features a burly Bulldog. They even publish Bulldog® Magazine

There must be others, but those came to me right away.

This is a great topic — it would be interesting to see if this has changed over time, too. A good topic for someone’s graduate school thesis!

I was pleased when Mike and Pat’s mom asked me to do their memorial portrait because I knew them personally from their young kittyhood. They adopted my friend in the early 1980s. I was their cat-sitter when their human family travelled.

Both were affectionate cats, but expressed it in different ways. Pat was the snuggly one, who installed herself on your lap the moment you sat down and didn’t leave until forcefully removed! I never saw such a tiny cat — she could easily curl up in a cigar box!

Burly Mike showed his affection by bringing home the fruits of his hunting expeditions. On one house-sitting stint I was getting more and more concerned about the noxious odors coming up from the basement. I looked everywhere to find the culprit, emptied dehumidifiers and threw bleach water down the floor drains. The stench just grew stronger! Finally, I gave up and asked my dad to come help me figure out what was happening, so my friends didn’t return to a rotting house. Alas, he found the problem: Apparently Mike had brought home his trophy — a squirrel — and deposited it behind a piece of furniture in the basement for safe-keeping quite a few days earlier! Phew-y!

Memorial Portrait of Mike and Pat, Susan Donley, 2007. Collection of Catherine Raphael. Graphite pencil on 11×14 inch 100% rag paper.

Rikko, German Shepherd K9 Police Officer, originally uploaded by sdonley.

Memorial portrait of Rikko, North Versailles, PA Police K9 Corps, 9×12 inch graphite pencil drawing by Susan Donley, PetsPictured.com.

I was glad to be commissioned to do a memorial portrait of this devoted K9 officer to be given to his human partner Scott Kucic of the North Versailles, PA Police Department. Not only did Rikko serve his local community day in and day out, but he also served his country by working search and rescue at “The Pile” at Ground Zero after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on NYC’s World Trade Center.I was struck by the look of devotion in Rikko’s eyes while I drew and hope I captured that in the portrait, for the sake of everyone who knew him. My condolences to Scott, his family, and the members of the North Versailles Police Department who served with him everyday. It was an honor to honor this canine hero!I’ve set up a Rikko section at CafePress where you can order t-shirts, mugs, and more graced with Rikko’s dignified image — enjoy!Those of you who knew or worked with Rikko, please write a comment below to honor his memory and tell the rest of us something about him.