This poor puppy dog is Ralph, who I actually forgot about until mid-way through painting Jaeger when I was searching for photos of Toby as he was going to be the final painting. When I stumbled across the only photo of Ralph that we have, I exclaimed, ‘oh my gosh, Ralph! Aww…’.
So I had to use the fourth and last canvas to paint a portrait of Ralph. Ralph was originally my younger brother’s puppy, but after my parents divorced, my younger brother went to live with our father and they were unable to take Ralph with him. So my older brother Jakob adopted him and cared for him.
I was sure I had some photos of Ralph as a puppy and some other ones of him as an adult but I cannot find them anywhere!. I searched through all my old photos and spent an entire day going through computer backup files and old CDs to try and find some more photos of him but there is only the one.
Above is the base coat I completed in one painting session. Originally I was going to make the chest a brighter white but my paint brush ended up being dirty from the browns when I started painting and I actually liked the way the colour turned out and I thought it was more accurante.
Ralph is a mixed breed consisting of I think about four or five different hunting dogs and I think a little bit of mastiff rolled in. He was HUGE! But walked silently. It was very disconcerting for visitors to turn around and see a massive dog staring at them and the visitor hadn’t heard a dog approach. Those innate hunting dog skillz.
He always had a sad deep expression. When Jakob saw the finished painting of Ralph he said that I captured the ‘Ralph-ness’.
Here is the reference photo, the only photo of Ralph:
Kelly's Art Table 