Here is Cheetoh ...

And here is Cheetoh.

Cheetoh isn't quite finished, but looking at them in this format helps me see differences that aren't quite as noticeable in the originals.

Cheetoh will be finished today, and I'm about to narrow my focus - pet portraits in pencil. In one year, Dog willing, I'll be a full-time pet portraitist.

Wish me luck!

Sam Baker

And here is the other current project. Sam Baker will be on Calgary on August 11, and I'm hoping to get his autograph.

This guy has more hair than a keeshond - lots of time left on this one.

MUMMA

This is the beginning of a current project... well, maybe not the beginning - maybe the middle. This was done while camping by an inlet north of Powell River. After a caterpillar dropped out of a tree onto the paper, I decided to put it away until I got home. Still a few hours to go

.

George. Finally.

GEORGE SHAPING UP...

Still quite a way to go, but he's gradually coming together. Maybe two more sessions to breath life into George, and then the quilt.

Which will take longer, the background or the dog? It's a mystery, since this is my first time painting either a dog or a quilt..

As long as it doesn't take longer than to raise a dog from puppyhood, or to sew a quilt from scraps, I'll be happy.

MORE GEORGE...

Day 3... I decided to work from the eyes outward.
With pencil, I start at the top left corner and work my way down to the bottom right so I don't smudge things as I go. But acrylic dries so quickly that I can start anywhere. Often, it turns out that I start with Layer 1 and keep building up new layers until I get one that works.

I figured I'd better post at this stage in case this stage is the best one. You never know where these things will end up. Suddenly there may be two yaks where you thought there was a dog, and it's time to re-prime and start anew.

THE DANGERS OF HOUSE CLEANING

You may notice that many images are missing. That's because I got energetic one day and re-organized my electronic files without giving it much thought beforehand. Now I have hook up all the little wires again.

Life is so complicated.

BLACK DOG ON RED BLANKET

I've decided to follow the pattern of naming art as though the name has to take over in case the art turns out to be really bad. e.g. Woman in Green Dress or Boy on Chair.

This is the beginning of the black dog (George) on a red blanket (quilt from the closet, photographed separately from the dog). Dimensions 23.5 x 30 inches.

It looks as though it has promise, don't you think? The colors are very simple, so as not to confuse the issue. Or the artist.

Richard will be pleased, as I have just gotten some paint and slapped it down spontaneously as he suggested (he didn't use those words, excactly, but close enough).

GEORGE Complete

Okay, here he is. I hope this is George not as an Old Dog (which he is now) but just as a Dog, from puppy-hood to the semi-deaf old roundish sweetheart he has become.

GEORGE No. 1

And here is the beginning of George.

GEORGE

Here is George, whose story I will tell as soon as I'm out from under the weather.

GINNY: Source Photo

Someone requested the source for Ginny, so here it is... cute as a button, isn't she? It's hard to believe that when she stretches out from nose to tail she's five feet long!

SWEET GINNNY

Here is the finished Ginny... I think the cushion took almost as long as the dog, but Ginny seems happy with it.

Yes, Debra, you did tell me about Ikea ... and you were right, because I got the same information from an artist in Surrey, BC! I'll definitely go there next.

GINNY

Okay, time to get back to the drawing board - the pencil project continues, since I fell off the wagon and didn't draw EVERY DAY last year as planned. But more animals this year. Life is like a funnel once you start fine-tuning it, and my particular funnel seems to be full of dogs. I just love them.

Oh, and by the way! I solved the framing dilemna of big drawings = big cost to frame. One day I was walking past a store that sells framed prints for far less than the cost of a custom frame. A lightbulb moment. And then a couple of days ago, I found a whole stack of seriously marked down framed prints - from $10 to $30, big frames, mats, glass and all. I'm sure this happens all the time. So I'll just keep a supply on hand, throw away the prints and draw to fit.

I'm feeling pretty brilliant! Although I think this might explain why none of my friends are artists ...

THE PUGLETS

And here they are, with just a touch-up to finish them off. About 15" x 17". They and Roco are off to the framers tonight. Some kids coming up next, and then a border collie... fewer wrinkles, but more hair.

Li'l Snort grew during last night's Folk Festival - only a couple of hours before it got too dark to draw, but he's coming together. I'll finish him off tonight and then Mister Stinky's ear will begin to appear.

I guess I don't need to say much about the process, because you can see how it goes. I just start at the top left-hand corner and work my way down and across the page, inch by inch, wandering back in every once in a while to adjust the values and add some details. But I could talk statistics and math skills to thicken up the text. For example, just now I measured the completed bits and concluded there were 91 square inches. Then I calculated the number of minutes I have worked so far - 3600. A whopping 39 minutes for every inch of drawing! Wow! No wonder art is so expensive!

Just to be sure, I asked Don to check my math, because I have been known to conduct perfectly awesome calculations, over and over, even firming up the answer with a calculator, only to produce some result that has no relationship to the original question. Alas, the true answer is very commonplace 3.46 minutes per square inch.

Every artist should be married to an engineer or a mathemetician for just this purpose.

MISTER AND LITTLE SNORT - Day 3

What I mean by "day 3" is "Drawing Day 3". I must state this outright because, as one of you frequently points out, a number of days have been passing between posts.

I worked on Li'l Snort yesterday at the folk festival. This is about four hours in. With three more festival days to go, I hope to finish it by the end of the weekend!

Onward and upward!

STEP BY STEP

In case anyone is interested in how this works, I'll show this one each step of the way. And in case you check in regularly, you'll have something to look at while I'm working away in the background!

To start, I take anywhere from three to ten photographs when the light is right. Once I've picked the one I like, I convert it to black and white and adjust the lights and shadows with Photoshop. (In the original photo, these little Puggy faces were almost completely black - too dark to see all the wrinkles). I print the photo as large as will fit on an 8 x 10 sheet, and draw a 1" grid over it. I might also print a few of the other photos for reference. For example, I don't want Mister Stinky's eyes to be quite as close to sleeping as they are in this one!

The drawing will be 16 x 16 (twice the size of the original) so I drew a 2" grid on paper. Without a grid, it would take a lot longer to set up the drawing. There might also be some erasing involved, and all but the gentlest erasing can change the surface of the paper enough to effect the way graphite attaches to it.

The line drawing is the technical bit - sort of like priming a wall before you paint. It took me about an hour to get this far. Tonight I'll start on the actual "painting".

MISTER AND LITTLE SNORT - Source Image

On to a new project.
First, my apologies to Paul - the trip to Oliver was truly a flying trip. Well, let me rephrase that. The travelling was very slow, and the visit was very short. But Jean was happy with Jerome and he's now on the wall by her bed.
These are my brother's dogs, Mister Stinky and Little Snort. The big one's name is formally just Mister, but if any dog ever deserved to be called Mister Stinky, it is this one. While travelling, he creates a strange, deceptive odor that can only be dealt with by rolling down all four windows and hanging your head out of one. I use the word "deceptive" because it doesn't smell like regular doggie farts, or any farts at all for that matter. It's a kind of swamp gas that rises up around him every few minutes. If it had a color, it would be greenish grey. I didn't even realize they were farts at first. I just thought he was a stinky dog. Of course I'm exaggerating (not about the smell, but about the frequency). It's not really every few minutes. And I'm sure he only farts in the car, because he is a PALS dog, and has been trained not to fart when he's on a PALS visit.
I must tell you that pugs are so sweet you want to hug them even if they stink. I believe they are called pugs because they look like baby pigs (except from the front. From the front they look like wrinkled up kleenex). Anyway, I adore them and I want one. Just a pug and a golden retriever and then I'll be happy. Really I will.

To Kathy: no, I'm artistbeingbusy. But I'll get started now and post something later tonight. I think.

INTERMISSION

Well, Jerome is framed and ready to travel (see updated image below). Actually he's been in and out of his frame a few times because I needed to fix things that didn't quite look right. He's just about to go back in now. I'll deliver him to his new owner on Saturday, and then its back to the drawing board for me. I think a couple of pugs are on the agenda, and maybe their owner too.

KATIE AND MEGAN (sort of)

This is the part of Katie and Megan that worked. It turns out that textured paper isn't as good for humans as it is for scruffy dogs. And not only that, but it isn't easy to turn an out-of-focus pair of sandwich-holding hands into an in-focus pair of flower-holding hands. All-told, this was a tough drawing that catapulted into a dismal mess part way through. I considered (quite a few times) pulling out a new piece of paper and starting over, but I'm not that determined. I'm satisifed - many hours of dismal mess creation went into this before I admitted defeat.

IGGY INTERMISSION

After a questionable start on Katie and Megan, I had to take a break to make this birthday present. Iggy is little rough around the edges, but I gave myself one day to finish him and this is one day's worth of Keeshond.

JEROME (out of his frame)

I met Jerome's owner, Jean, while visiting my mom in Oliver, BC. Mom was 88, and lived at home until a couple of months ago. She was in the hospital for a few weeks, and then transferred to an extended care facility.

Most of Roco (a couple of drawings back) was made over three days in Mom's new "home", which she shared with Jean, Allison and Doreen. I got to know Jean and Allison fairly well. They were full of wit and humour, and made the best of what had become of their world. They liked Roco,

and Jean asked if I could draw a picture of her dog.

In a small photo album in a small drawer in a small cupboard in the small space she lives in, Jean found a photograph of Jerome. I told her I would draw him next time I came to visit.

I went back to see them when Mom died just a few days later. Jean told me four people have died in the bed Mom was in, and she and Allison have decided that if anyone asks them to move to that bed, the're going to say no. She gave me her photo of Jerome, and I told her I would bring the drawing next time I came to visit.

"I might not be here," said Allison. "I'm hoping to go home." And then after a pause, "But I'll probably be here."

"I might not be here," said Jean. "If this blood clot in my leg breaks loose, I'm a goner." I told Jean she would definitely be there when I got back, because she isn't in the bad luck bed.

So Jerome is finished, and I am looking forward to delivering him. Jean, Allison and Doreen are little pieces of my mom.

JEROME - Source Images

Meet Jerome (on the left, may Dog rest his soul) and an unknown living Bull Terrier (on the right, probably a show dog) who has agreed to stand in as an interestingly posed co-model. I am hoping to make a great Jerome for his owner, who has only a few tiny snapshots of him.