Trying vainly to come up with an appropriate thank you gift for Ansel's soon to be former speech therapist (the very excellent Bethe Halligan of the Speech Playroom).
After years of care that has been far above and far far beyond the call of duty, an appropriate token seemed to exceed my mental and physical resources...so I drew on a napkin.
We've had napkins featuring Bethe's infinitely tolerant dog Harry before: (see one here, or here, or here). This time I felt the unhealthy urge to add my kids to the image.
As the art critic Dave Hickey once said in a catalog essay in which he specifically, ahem, did not appreciate my work (my sculpture, not napkins, god only knows what he would have to say about those): portraiture is always problematic, and nothing is worse than a parent's sentimental portrait of his or her own child.
He was of course probably talking about quality of concept rather than just plain old bad, awkward drawing.
But here we have bad concept and bad drawing.
Maybe I'll take another swing at just the dog...
