dog portraits

Sophie Ryder Exhibition at the Lightbox Gallery in Woking

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Minotaur Sculpture in Wire Netting at Lightbox Gallery Woking

Closing soon unfortunately, this Sophie Ryder exhibition showing her amazing sculptures is on in the Upper gallery of the Lightbox in Woking. Not only sculpture but also her mosaics and tapestry are represented

I have never had the chance to look at her work close up before. I have seen individual pieces in places like the RHS garden at Wisley, where three dancing gigantic hairs amuse the onlookers. It baffled me as to how such detailed work could be done in wire netting, netting like chicken wire, but it has been. Different animal shapes are on show. Hares are obviously a favourite. The minotaur as you can see and I believe gigantic ones are set up in her sculpture park in Yorkshire. Dogs too, a re featured as she loves her dogs

I will attach towards the end a picture of a set piece featuring four hares contemplating a heap of scrap metal. I was told that this piece was inspired by 9/11. I fancied that I saw expressions of bewilderment and despair on the faces of the hares, as they tried to make sense of the destruction and needless loss of life. Whether it was there or not, nevertheless this piece has a meditative quality, and I stood there watching it for quite at time.

Sophie Ryder is renowned for developing the Lady Hare, with the body of a woman and the head of a hare, as a counterpart to the Minotaur in Greek Mythology. The female body is based on her own apparently.

Her work has been shown all over the world, and I believe 9/11 will be going to the United States.

A Completed Commission

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The Final Version

This is the last commission of the year, and it is finished, I am pleased to say. I have had to keep in touch with the client, at every stage of the painting, which I don’t usually do, as it does make a lot of work . Having said that I have enjoyed this commission more than I thought, and maybe stage by stage consultation is not a bad idea, certainly after my last bad experience

However, they were nice people to deal with, and although they made a few changes here and there, basically they were onside.The painting was collected today and I am pleased to say that they were thrilled with the result

The subject of the painting was a Victorian cottage deep in the Surrey woods. Probably it had originally been an estate worker’s cottage, built around 1840 with a later addition.

I went to look at the cottage quite early one morning. The sun had risen. At this time of year, the shadows are long. The woods behind the house were brightly lit, most of the leaves had gone, and the light filtering through the branches gave them a translucent feel. To get that effect on paper needed thinking about. I used a colour that I don’t use often, quinacradone gold. It was perfect for the job and just gave the effect of sun-bathed trees that I was looking for

Most of the house was in shadow. I removed some as I wanted the effect of bright sun hitting the brickwork here and there. The combination of light and dark should be dramatic

When I was on site, the client brought their little dog, a Labrador bitch puppy. She was a beautiful colour, gold. Would I include her in the painting. I like to please, so I said yes, but I was anxious. I have painted dogs before but never done a dog portrait, especially one so tiny. She would be the size of a fingernail

I had taken some pictures. I have to say that for a lively puppy, she was very well behaved and posed beautifully. I picked one of the photographs and did a full sized drawing, which I was pleased with. I then reduced it in size to a thumbnail and put it in the sketch, and went on from there. When the time came to paint, I used the same gold as the trees in the background, and used more of the same for shadows on the dog. It worked better then I thought possible

Mostly straightforward otherwise, except that I could not get definition to stay in the cottage features. Overnight the colour would dry and disappear, which is not that unusual in watercolour. Eventually I reddened the brick colour with vermilion, which darkened the building and somehow improved the brick texture. Again something I have learned for another time

Commissions can certainly be testing, and very occasionally go awry, like my last unhappy experience, but they can also be broadening and make you attempt something you wouldn’t normally tackle. Will I start doing animal portraits? Hmm perhaps not, but animals in landscape are a possibility