Week 41 - Beware the 'loup-garou'

Lemon Yellow, Chartreuse, Aegean Blue & Navy Blue

I’ve just returned to England after a month in Greece. It is lovely to be home with my husband and Laika and Clemi, our two dogs. The dog was the first domesticated animal and is a symbol of loyalty and vigilance, often acting as guardian and protector. This month I’m choosing "Dog” as the theme for #coloricombo prompts.

We start with George Rodrigue (1944–2013), an American painter from Louisiana. He began his career by painting traditional landscapes of the state and scenes of Cajun life but is best known for his iconic Blue Dog series, paintings that originated from a Cajun legend.

Born in New Iberia, Louisiana, Rodrigue studied at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. His earlier works had a strong Cajun influence: paintings of rural Louisiana depicting scenes of bayous and local traditions often with the central focus of an oak tree.

The first ‘blue dog’came about in the early 1980s when Rodrigue was commissioned to illustrate the book Bayou, a collection of Louisiana ghost stories.

For one of the stories, Slaughterhouse, Rodrigue had to depict an evil watchdog and he took inspiration from the legend of the loup-garou, a local version of the werewolf who transforms from a human when the moon is full.

Working as he often did from photographs, Rodrigue settled on using Tiffany, a terrier/spaniel mix and his recently deceased studio dog as the (rather unlikely) basis for this fearful creature. The resultant painting, Watchdog shows a (possibly less scary than intended) blue-ish dog with evil eyes protecting a blood red house with a large oak tree in the background.

Rodrigue spent the next four years painting variations of his loup-garou until in 1998, at an exhibition in Los Angeles, he overheard people referring to them as the “blue dog” paintings. This gave him the confidence to free the dog from it’s Cajun roots and it’s evil backstory.

He soon painted the blue dog on it’s own, with yellow eyes instead of red and without any discernible background. The first time the new blue dog was introduced was in the painting titled Loup-garou which I’ve taken today’s colours from. This was also the first painting that Rodrique completed without depicting an oak tree.

Over the next twenty five years, the Blue Dog became the focus of Rodrigue’s studio practice. In 1992 it featured in an Absolut Vodka art campaign and the images were recognised internationally. In 2000 Rodrique worked on a global advertising campaign for Xerox and their new colour printers, again with Blue Dog at the forefront.

Rodrigue's art has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the world and today the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts supports art education in Louisiana schools. His Blue Dog remains one of the most recognisable motifs in contemporary American art.

Read more about Rodrigue here and about Watchdog (the first blue dog) here. Watch a PBS short featuring Rodrigue here

“Loup-garou”, Oil on canvas, George Rodrigue, 1991

Colour Combination

The colours for this weeks prompt are Lemon Yellow, Chartreuse, Aegean Blue & Navy Blue. Use the #coloricombo colours along with any neutral light and dark colour to create an artwork in any medium and style. 

For October the theme is “Dog”. Use this as topic and create in any way as you wish, using the week’s colours in any medium and style. If you are enjoying these prompts please share them with someone else who’ll enjoy a dollop of colour and art inspiration.

I love to see what you do with the coloricombo colours. If you'd like to share your work, please tag #coloricombo and #estemacleod on social media. You're also welcome to post in the private Facebook group Creative Prompts.