Memorial Portrait of Nikki, English Bulldog

We have two bully new members of the PetsPictured.com pack, a pair of English Bulldog sisters from Ohio, whose portraits were commissioned by their mom Cynthia…
Sadly, poor sweet Nikki died of cancer at only two years of age. By the very nature of memorial portraits, photo selection was limited. Thankfully, one of Nikki’s photos had both a delightful cocked-head expression and soft indirect lighting. What a sweet face! She must be sorely missed.

Graphite portrait of Nikki’s sister Allie

Allie, Nikki’s sister, is still with her human family. Having the luxury of taking new photos, Allie’s mom kept snapping pictures, trying to capture one where Allie’s teeth weren’t showing. That never happened — those lower teeth are just part of Allie’s look! They stayed in her portrait.

Allie taught me a great tip to pass on to my clients trying to capture portrait-worthy photos: I wondered how they managed to get such wonderful lighting, combining the best of indirect and direct lighting. Here’s the secret: It was taken in the car!

Of course! Nice indirect light coming in from all sides eliminate deep shadows that hide details in sunlit photos. But the light is strongest from the window near Allie, so there is enough directional light to create highlights and shadows to create depth– the kind of 3-D shading that camera flash totally obliterates. What a lovely find!

I now recommend this trick to folks who are having a hard time taking well-lit photos without using the flash. Thanks for this bully new strategy, Allie!

My third painting in the Woman’s Work is Never Done series of “work portraits” is of my maternal grandmother Doris Elliott Garlock, which was my mom’s Christmas gift for 2007. The painting, from a faded family photo c. 1945, shows my grandmother, mother of seven at the time (eventually eight), taking a break from washing diapers, raising toddlers through teens, preparing meals, and all manner of other “wifely” chores, to cut the grass with a push lawnmower: “Mow Work for Mom.”

“Mow Work for Mom,” Susan K. Donley, 2008. 15×11 inches, colored pencil on paper. Collection of Janice Donley.

View a larger version of this painting and read more about Mom’s experience minding her New Jersey homefront during and after World War II at…

Or check out gifts and gear featuring this image at Cafepress.

Stay tuned for the next installment in the series — another down on the farm — later this week…

My second painting in the Woman’s Work is Never Done series of “work portraits” is of my great-aunt Hazel, a telegrapher at the East Palestine, Ohio Postal Telegraph office: “Aunt Hazel at the Telegraph.”

“Aunt Hazel at the Telegraph,” Susan K. Donley, 2007. 11×15 inches, colored pencil on paper. Collection of Janice Donley.

View a larger version of this painting and read more about the Hazel’s experience as a “girl geek,” circa 1915…

Or check out gifts and gear featuring this (Morse) coder at Cafepress.

Stay tuned for the next installment in the series — one of my grandmother — later this week…

As promised, in honor of Women’s History Month (March), I’m unveiling a series of “work portraits” called “Woman’s Work is Never Done.” First in the series: “Aunt Teen on her Tractor.”

“Aunt Teen on her Tractor,” Susan K. Donley, 2006. 15×11 inches, colored pencil on paper. Collection of Janice Donley.

See a larger version of this painting and read more about the story behind it…

Just for fun I’ve added a Woman’s Work section to my Cafepress store to create some fun gear honoring our hard-working foremothers

Stay tuned for the next installment in the series later this week…

When I browse our family albums, I skip quickly though the dressed-up holiday line-ups with carefully combed hairstyles, but stop to linger over the “good stuff.” For me, the good stuff are the candid shots that capture a slice of everyday life. Give me wrinkled clothes and tussled hair every time! Those are the shots that transport me to another time to glimpse the lives of my ancestors, revealing moments they thought were important enough to record on precious film.

Rarest among these slice-of-life photos are those that picture folks working. When I run into those shots, I zero in for a good, long look! Teams of horses pulling wagons, sawmills, tractors, yoked oxen, feeding chickens — bring them on! I love these images and never miss the chance to ask older relatives what they remember about these chores to reconstruct the story behind the photos with the help of my mother and brother, my co-conspirators in this genealogical quest.

Woman’s Work is Never Done

Among my favorite workaday photos are those showing women at work, driving tractors or oxen, feeding livestock, manning the telegraph, as well as more traditional household chores. How arrogant are we to proclaim the late 1900s as the era of the “Working Woman”! Women have always pitched in whenever there was work to be done.

A couple of years ago, I decided to use one of these photos as the basis of a painting for my mother for Christmas: my Great Aunt “Teen” in overalls riding a tractor in the 1920s. The tiny black-and-white snapshot was beat up and faded, so the first task was scanning and restoring the photo as well as I could. Then I gathered other photos of Teen, since her face in the tractor photo was heavily shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat.

At first I planned to do the painting in full color, thinking that would bring the scene back to life. But the color sketch just looked fake — I liked the black-and-white better. Maybe I could duplicate the illusion of faded color that I often experience when I look long enough at an old sepia photo print? I decided to try using Prismacolor’s three different hues of gray colored pencils — warm gray, cool gray, and French gray — to apply subtle coloration to a monochrome image. I loved the effect and, more importantly, I loved working on the painting, a kind of narrative portrait. My respect for Teen grew as I drew and learned more of her story of helping out the family during very difficult times.

Before I finished the painting, I already knew I wanted to honor the other women caught working in my family album in a series called (naturally!) “Woman’s Work is Never Done.” Next Christmas, I gave my mom the second in the series, a work portrait of her Aunt Hazel, a telegrapher in East Palestine, Ohio.

This past Christmas my mom’s gift was a painting of her mom, taking a break from washing diapers to mow the grass with a push mower. Just in case raising seven kids wasn’t enough work!

Women’s History Month

In honor of Women’s History Month, I’m unveiling these first paintings of what I hope are many in the “Woman’s Work is Never Done” series. This week, I’ll post the paintings, along with the stories behind the women and their work. I don’t know where this series is headed, but invite anyone who has intriguing photos and stories of their foremother’s labor to get in touch with me at sue@petspictured.com.

What do the paintings look like? Stay tuned!

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.

“Survivor Reaching for the Light,” Susan Donley, 2007. Colored pencil and Neocolor II on 9×12 inch Pastelbord.

I’ve always been a dandelion fan, from the days when I picked bouquets of them for my mom. The very thing I love most about them — their ability to grow and thrive anywhere — is exactly what puts them on lawn fanatics’ “Most Wanted” list. Give them a tablespoon of dirt and they’ll put down roots, send up shoots, and push their sunny blossoms skyward! Every time I see a dandelion making a go of it from a crack in a sidewalk, I can’t help but smile at their optimism and determination.

Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer at the height of dandelion season. From the moment I heard those words, “It’s cancer” to my surgery three weeks later, my heart never left my throat. My bone-chilling fear eased only when I took walks around the neighborhood. The neighborhood birds reminded me that “His Eye is On Sparrow.” The neighborhood dandelions were in full bloom, the perfect parable of survival, growing in lawns, through weed-smothering mulch, and out of cracks in the road. They not only survived, they thrived!

One particularly determined survivor spoke to me from our neighbor’s steps. Growing in dense shade in a crack in the mortar between the bricks, its profuse blooms reached out to the sunlight that only appeared a short few hours out of the day. What a symbol of hope! I took several photos of it, though I hardly need the photos to conjure its image from my mind, it has become such a part of me by now.

When Ann Kullberg announced that dandelions were the theme for her Member Theme Show this year, I had to honor my dandelion co-survivor! I took the opportunity to try the new technique of working with colored pencil over an underpainting with Neocolor 2 on Pastelbord.

During the close observation that drawing demands, I realized this dandelion, was actually two different plants of different species. I think there’s a potent lesson to be learned in that, as well!

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!

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.