Happy birthday boys!

Once again, I must apologize for my month-long absence. It has been a rather difficult month for me, with a lot of things going on. Also its been unforgivingly cold outside! I never liked November anyway.

But there is one excellent thing happening in November - Marco and Perry celebrate their second birthday on November 25th! Can you believe it? The skinny boys are two :)



And you know what that means - we need a flood of baby pictures!







They've changed so much. I wish i had a chance to meet them when they were all small and squishy. I met the boys for the first time when they were just a hair younger than six months old and they were almost full grown already. BTW if you want to know who's who in the baby pictures - Perry is the only red puppy and Marco is the only black and white baby with no blaze on his face. He just has a white nose tip, while his other two black and white siblings had a full white stripe.

Just for kicks, here's what the boys looked like when i brought them home! Here they are at the breeder's house at 6 months old...



And here are my stunning gentlemen now...


Happy birthday skinny boys!

I can hardly believe how pretty they are

Well I've had a rather difficult two weeks. I had a physics test, followed by two anthropology papers and a microbiology test. I haven't done any new painting. In fact I haven't really accomplished much of anything except some studying.

Except some photography! On Sunday, it was a lovely lovey day and we took the boys to Riis park. Its off season and the park was nearly empty, so we let them have the whole field to themselves to stretch those skinny legs. I convinced my stepdad to bring his falcy SLR camera - its a Nikon D70 - and he let me play with it. I got a couple of pictures that are absolutely phenomenal. Makes me want to borrow that camera a bit more permanently...

Goodbye Piggies

According to my statistics, the most common search words that bring people to my blog involve some kind of variation of "cup" and "dog". I guess my title is a little misleading - we don't talk tea very often. And the only cups involved are my own. And I never realized how much people liked cups with dogs on them.

Well today we had a cup-related tradegy! My favorite pink piggie mug is unfortunately no longer with us. As I was carrying my mug to the kitchen hoping to refill it with some Lady Grey, Perry was rambunctiously hopping around the bed. And he ran right up to me and smacked the mug out of my hands. Alas the handle came right off and the mug cracked. Oh and whatever bit of tea I had in there spilled too.

Perry took it very hard. In fact after I was done cleaning up the spill, I had to convince him that I still love him.

Meanwhile Marco was like "I am sooooooo not involved in any of this! Not my fault this time, can't blame me!"

So until I find something equally as adorable as the piggie mug, I guess I'll settle on the blue doggie mug. I must say I'm not crazy about it. Those pink piggies made tea taste better.

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My boss gave me permission to set up a shell display at the grooming shop. Rather than donating one of my current shells to the display, I figured I'd make one especially for it. So I painted the Saturday dog staff - Jovani the poodle and Perry and Marco. During the week different employees bring different dogs, but these guys are there on the weekend. Plus I figure it would be pretty cool for people to see the shell and then to turn around and to see Jovani and the IGs right in front of them. Its also a self-advertisement for the custom portraits :P


Its not really "finalized" right now. I want to add more detail to their faces. I'm not super thrilled with how it came out, but it was really a quick portrait.

Here's a vague reference photo of the three of them together. This was a few months ago, so Jovani looks more mature (and he was a little overgrown in this photo, and usually sports neater hair).

Happy G-day, skinny!

Dogs, Art and a cup of tea has been invited to join the DogTime Blog Network. I'm flattered and excited at the same time. i now have a DogTime badge to display!




In other news, I still haven't gotten around to any painting yet. Man, shame on me. But I'm gonna try tonight. I've got a few really spiff shells penciled out and i can't wait to bring them to life.

It also seems like I'll be reformatting my computer very soon because it is just not working properly anymore. I'm trying to find a way to back up 7 gigs of pictures and stuff. I'm thinking I better back it all up fast before there's that final crash where everything dies. Always have a backup plan folks! I've got a year and a half of pictures of my dogs and several years of my cats and fish... and a few other "memory worthy" occasions. I'd be crushed if they were to disappear. So lets make sure it doesn't happen!

and lastly, September 15th was Marco's gotcha day! Everyone congratulate him, the crazy boy has been with me for a year! He is incredibly different from his shy, gentle littermate Perry. Marc wiggles his whole body when he's happy, jumps in your lap whether you want it or not, thinks its funny to piss off the cats, and makes sure to lick every piece of kibble in his bowl before actually eating any. I've never met another dog with so much personality. Happy (belated) gotcha day, skinny boy!

Cool green

I've got progress on my remodeled room! Again, its mostly why i haven't been posting lately. I've been without a room for over three weeks during the remodel. Hard to find a muse when I'm stuck in the kitchen with my parents walking back and forth. But now the remodel is pretty much complete, only left to obtain the rest of the furniture and to "move back in" :)

That's what I've got so far - polished wood floors, lovely green paint, a new bed, a chair, and a computer desk that isn't in the shot. BTW see if you can find Anton in the picture ;) The blanket is going to change, too, this is my old faithful grey-green comforter. The wall colour is not exactly what i was going for (I was thinking something of a richer shade of green) but I like it a lot and in the afternoon this room practically lights up from all the sun I get. The only drawback is that in incandescent light the paint looks more of a cucumber shade rather than citrusy. But anyway I'm thrilled.

Now i need to move the fishtank back in, get a book case, and I'm thinking of getting a flat TV sort of thing. I was gonna move my old clunky tv back rather than upgrade, since i rarely watch it. But honestly i looooooove how much free space i have right now, so i am thinking of spending a bit more and getting an LCD tv after all, and mounting it on the wall. Decisions!
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I turned 21 on July 22nd. You know you're getting old when you start getting sophisticated gifts! ;)

My boyfreind got me this lovely wishbone necklace from EmilyEJewelry, in white gold. He was a good boy and picked something out of my favorites like I told him to, lol. I LOVE it though :) Its really simple and fancy at the same time. I haven't taken it off since he gave it to me, except to take that picture.
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This wasn't a birthday gift, but it coincidentally arrived almost in time for my birthday :P Its a custom pin of Perry and Marco! My friend Emily from Dreameyce Studio made it herself. I absolutely love it! She captured a great quirky look. Its just not like anything else that I've seen, very different. Made with skill and great detail :) Thank you Emily - its marvelous!
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One last thing...

Is this not the most magnificent face?

full schedule

I was on a roll, posting new shells often over the last two or three weeks... That sort of thing never lasts, does it? Alas, I've gotten caught up.

In the last week or so I've been subject to...

An art history exam. Got a nice 97.

Shakespeare in the Park - we saw Hamlet (my favorite Shakespeare play ever!!) and it was absolutely magnificent. The graphic on the left is sorta tacky though. Not that i took that photo or it was actually there, i found it online.

Attended a dog show in Staten Island... Perry was chosen as Best of Opposite Sex and took 2 points. Marco took Reserve and was behaved superbly.

We took a brief trip to the beach to let the dogs celebrate their good job in the ring...

And now I'm working on nursing an iggy with a very upset stomach (probably due to his chewing up a linoleum tile).

...on top of all that, you can add in work, class, volunteering, paying attention to the boyfriend, cleaning the house, and feeling totally under the weather due to the unfortunate consequences than come with being endowed with "girly parts".

As you can see I've had my hands full. I've barely even had time or interest to check Etsy too thoroughly. And all of yesterday, I was on the Our Dogs Online forums, trying to figure out what would soothe Perry's stomach... He seems to be doing sorta alright now, fingers crossed that he continues this way.

But anyway, just for show and tell, here's a fun picture that i drew a few years ago :P

The creative process. With extra cat content!

So I thought I'd introduce everyone to a brief guide to my creative process. Do you know how the dogs appear on the shells? Guess! That's right, i paint them!


i start out with the archetypal messy artists' desk. Its actually just my computer desk, but with the help of a messy newspaper and some supplies all over the place, it becomes an instand studio. Just add cat.


These wind up on the shell, in concerted amounts and trivial locations.


i cannot, for the life of me, remember what kind of tea I was having. By the appearace of it, I'd say really dilute Lady Grey. Yeah if I'm feeling too lazy to brew a new cup of tea, I'll add water to half of an existing cup and enjoy some water-flavored goodness.


There's that cat. Tim thinks I'm *fascinating*! Ehh not really, he gets annoyed that i constantly poke and pord him in his favorite sleeping spot. So he tosses hair at me so i have to pick it out of my paints and brushes..


So uhhh i get that shell ready. This one is gonna be a pit bull terrier.


self-explanatory?


The newspaper isn't there to protect from messy spills. Its there for me to test paints.


Eventually I get started! First I fill in the bulk of it and then i go into details. Y'know, the logical way to do this.


and thus, the product. Meh, I'd have taken more "in the process" photos but i got awfully frustrated trying to blend the red and black, and no photos happened.

But honestly, the preparation and side details is the bulk of the "creative process" over here. Not pictured is me procrastinating and checking my email ten times while painting.

...its only fair if i throw in a few dog pictures, right?

There's Marco trotting off on some dirt path. We went to a lure coursing event Sunday. And after we got bored we decided to walk around the area. Turned out that the park had some awesome hiking trails!


After the hike, they piled up to nap. Anton, who was not with us during the hike, had a very long day "in spirit" and had to sleep it off as well. The hard life of a housecat..

Tim not included in the cuddling because he thinks its for pansies.