Rats! (She's Winning)

February 28, 2011: UPDATE! This painting won the "Best Last In: Jury Award" at Bezpala Brown Gallery. This means it will be re-hung in the show in late March 2011 as well as entered in the overall Latest in Art 2011 competition..

In this painting, we're taken into the interior of a bar, Anyplace in Anytown, on a Saturday night. The "usual suspects" are there: the couple on a date... the buddies having a brew or two... the gangster with his moll... friends and strangers having card games...

"Rats! She's Winning"/oil on canvas

It's all there... except the characters are rats, dressed as humans. I'm not sure why I decided to use rats in this painting but it may have been due to research work I was doing at the time, where I was reading a lot of studies which used rats. As you know, rats are used because certain aspects of their physiology and biochemistry are near identical with ours!

Some people look at this painting and see mice... although I've painted scenes with mice (now in a private collection in Canada), these creatures were modeled on the rats in a Visual Dictionary I have. Based on unfortunately close observation of mice (when a few took up residence in my house back in 2009), the tails and ears on mice do not look like those of rats.

Detail: Upper right corner

But, as every picture tells a story, all interpretations are welcome. Some of the details are lost in the photo; for example, the mugs of beer and ale on the bar, shown in the detail below, are actually painted with the faceted glass and reflections on the glass. You can see such attention-to-detail better when you view the real painting. All being well, this canvas will be on show at the Bezpala Brown Gallery in Toronto in late February.

Detail:Lower left corner

Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer

A view of Rats! in the place of honor

All images copyrighted to the artist

Busy Beavers

The painting I'm writing about today, and posting pictures of, is a work I have titled "Busy Beavers", commemorating life at the office and a very chaotic form of office life, at that.

Busy Beavers - Oil on canvas

In this painting, everything is an accident waiting to happen as, at any moment, the beavers will either trip over the telephone cords or bump into each other, sending piles of paper flying!  No-one seems to know what anyone else is doing, there is a lack of direction and all the staff are in reactive mode! But as this is a painting, a moment frozen in time, we will never know for sure if the catastrophe happens or whether it is diffused.

This painting won an Honorable Mention in one of the Fall National Juried Art Exhibitions held at Impact Artists Gallery, in Buffalo, New York.  There were entries from all over the United States, where I was living at the time.

A couple of years later, I donated this to a fundraiser for Studio Arena Theater in Buffalo and it was purchased by the theater's then-Marketing Manager.  I don't know where it is today, but I'm assuming it is still in a private collection.

In the photos, I'm showing the painting in its entirety plus a detail from the upper right corner.  As the painting was already varnished when photos were taken, there is some distortion due to the light reflecting off the varnish.

Busy Beavers - Detail

I think most people can relate to this picture, because who among us hasn't worked, at some point, in an organization that is an accident waiting to happen?


Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer

All images copyrighted to the artist

Lunchtime at the 'Head in the Sand' Diner

Welcome to my blog about my art! Over the years, I've painted a number of canvases - some of which are in private collections - and plan, each time I post, to show you one of my completed canvases and tell you a bit about its creation.

Lunchtime at the Head in the Sand Diner - 36"H x 36"W

The first canvas I've selected is one that will be part of a group show, in late February 2011, at Bezpala Brown Gallery. Although I painted this a few years ago, it has not been shown before in Toronto, Canada.


One of the challenges all artists face is how to capture the colors, details and other attributes of a painting in a photograph. The generally held view is that you cannot - no photo does justice to a painting. Otherwise, why do so many people flock to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, up close and personal?!



What you cannot see in the photo is the myriad details of lunchtime at a diner frequented by ostriches. I've also included a close-up of the right hand corner, for anyone who cannot make it into the gallery in person. For example, it is not possible, in the photo, to see exactly what is written on the outside of the menu , but it is something VERY important - from an ostrich's perspective!

Detail: Upper right

This canvas will be on display on February 26th and January 27th and the gallery is at 17 Church Street, near Front Street East.!

Detail: Lower left

Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer

All images copyrighted to the artist