Rosie and her Friends

Rosie (west), Trixie (North), Hot Dog (East) and their owner Avis (South) are playing bridge together. Hot Dog and Avis have their eyes locked trying to read eachother's minds, and Rosie looks on intently. Trixie just wants to go play frisbee in the park. This was a commission I did for a colleague, the three dogs are the dogs that him and his wife have had over the years, and it was his idea to have everybody playing bridge together. My bridge knowledge is rather limited so hopefully the painting is somewhat accurate and lot of fun!

Composition is very important as always, and one key decision is whether to make the paper orientation in portrait mode (i.e. the paper is narrow and tall), or landscape mode (paper wide and short). My first instinct was to go landscape, because I had to fit four people around a table, but then I was inspired to go portrait mode because it brought together all of the characters in a more intimate space. At least part of each character touches another which gives you a nice sense of being around a table playing cards. I think with landscape orientation the characters would have had space between them. As usual I added a lot of warm reds at the bottom to give a sense of depth.

15x11" cold press. 2012