Hunter on Silk Charmeuse

Hunter on Silk Charmeuse 18" x 12" Oil on Hand-dyed fabric on board copyright K Widger

This is number five in my developing experiment of painting on my hand-dyed fabric. I glued a piece of canvas to prepared board, let that dry, then glued the silk charmeuse over that and folded it over to the backside and put several coats of medium over that.  The painting has the texture of the charmeuse, very subtly so.  I think you can sort of see it in the picture, and I used it  to advantage when I applied the final highlights on his cheekbones and other places, dragging a light-loaded brush over the areas I wanted to highlight.
I tried to use as much color as I could, given both the reflective and absorbent quality of a very black, shiny dog.  And I just have to say, that he is such a handsome dog!  I hope his extreme good-looks and his genial personality come through in this painting.  And, in painting him on such a "refined" surface as hand-dyed silk charmeuse, removed from nature, I also want to suggest the idea that we have removed domestic dogs from their natural habitat and put them entirely in ours.  Big, black dogs, like Hunter, still enjoy a fierce reputation, made even more believable by their training as dogs of war and criminal apprehension.  I hope here to soften that reputation just a bit.