We took up painting
But please don't say "Pawcasso" because Joe is not a cubist (and also Picasso was an awful person)
I wonder if it’s easier for a dog to be a Renaissance animal because they care less about being great at things than about pleasing their humans and enjoying themselves. So therefore a dog would be more likely to try anything just for the experience, especially if there is food involved.
(I think about dog psychology probably way more than I should.)
Anyway, one of the things that Renaissance people always seem to do, from the actual Renaissance to accomplished young women in Jane Austen novels to Winston Churchill and Joni Mitchell (and, sigh, George W. Bush), is paint. Why is this? Why is painting seen as the epitome of culture? Is it because, back in the day, paints cost a small fortune, more than the average peasant could afford? Is it because it’s more difficult to control a paintbrush than a pencil and therefore, it’s a skill that takes time to master? Is it because, as an art form, painting has traditionally been dominated by white men?
Joe, as we know, is a dog of taste and sophistication. And when we learned there is a way for dogs to paint, we decided he should give it a try.1
This is how a dog can make a painting:
Someone with opposable thumbs and color vision puts paint on a canvas and puts the painting into a Ziploc bag with peanut butter smeared on one side.
The dog licks off the peanut butter and, in the process, moves the paint around through the plastic.
Voila! A painting!
We ordered a set of non-toxic acrylic paints and a package of mini-canvases and waited impatiently (one of us more than the other) for them to arrive.
And then one sunny Saturday afternoon, it was time to paint!
Joe was uninterested in color selection, possibly because he is red-green color-blind, but more likely because the tubes of paint all smelled the same to him. I picked out bright green for grass, blue for sky, and yellow, pink, and purple for flowers, and squirted it onto a canvas.2 For good measure, I picked out a few more colors and squirted it out into an abstract design — “pattern” would be too generous — in case Joe’s aesthetic sense favored the non-figurative. Then I slipped the canvases into the peanut butter-covered bags and let him do his work.
It didn’t go so well at first. The painting kept sliding across the floor. But once I held it down, things improved. By the time we got to the second painting, he figured out how to hold the bag in place with his paw. He is so smart!
In the end, we had two paintings! We gave one to his aunt as a birthday present. (She appreciated it. Wouldn’t you?) I keep the other one on my desk, and I admire it frequently. Joe didn’t say which one he liked better, but when I asked if he wanted to make another painting, maybe a self-portrait, he seemed agreeable. Or maybe resigned. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
And now I wonder: do dogs have their own form of art? Maybe something to do with smells? Or movement? If there is, Joe hasn’t yet told me about it.
Does your dog have artistic inclinations? Do they tend toward painting or perhaps other arts? Is there an art form that is specific to dogs? Please let us know!
Dog content of the week
TikTok has a Dog Vision filter!
Related fun fact: Bluey was done in a dog-friendly palate so dogs could watch, too.
Sometimes the world is a truly amazing place — in the best possible way.
You can also teach a dog to hold a paint brush, but, honestly, it seemed like a lot of work.
My own abilities of a painter have not advanced past junior high, the last time I had formal painting instruction, and I wasn’t that great back then.