Sighthound special

Sighthounds - their elegant looks, their regal holier-than-thou attitude, their amazing speed and agility - it all makes me admire them incredibly. They're so very different from other dogs. So lets feature a few sighthounds that I've painted recently.

Blue brindle Afghan Hound, with a goatee, on a shell with beautiful pastel orange and grey highlights.


tricolor Basenji, showing off his tightly curled tail.


Graceful white Saluki on a fiery red-orange shell.


Italian Greyhound. Isn't it about time I painted more of the breed I love? This shell will be one of the prizes awarded for Best of Breed at the supported Italian Greyhound entry at the Nor'East Toy Dog Cluster, Classic Toy Dog Club of Western Massachusetts on Saturday, May 29th.


This was a custom order of two ex-racing Greyhounds.

of masked gentlemen, gaggle of jrts, a mysterious cat, and my muses

Lets revive this place a little. Its been quite a few moons since I last posted and yet my stats tell me that people still occasionally visit this blog, for which I am grateful. Perhaps they wind up here by accident but I know I'd rather stumble onto a live blog than a dead one. So for the sake of those people, and perhaps for those that miss us I figured I'd throw in an update :)

As usual - i've been busy! School, work, a lot of dog shows, and a little painting here and there.

I put two new shells into my shop just today. Here we've got two boys hiding behind masks. Or maybe they're girls, that's really up to the buyer to decide.


Here we have a Rhodesian Ridgeback, a sighthound from Africa that was once used for lion hunting, as the story goes. Man you guys should see how intense Ridgebacks are on the lure coursing field, its amazing. i like this breed a lot.


And here we have a Bullmastiff. Now most of the bullmastiffs I've met have been mushy fools, but my understanding is that they will protect their family with whatever means necessary if the need ever arises.

Oh here's a fun one, I painted a custom kitty not too long ago! Okay it was long ago, but I never blogged Java:

Java is an abyssinian, a beautiful slender red cat with huge jade-colored eyes. He is unfortunately no longer with us and I hope this shell portrait will bring Java's human fond memories.

Oh you guys know what else I did? I painted 20 Jack Russells over the summer. Twenty!

That's a bunch in progress.
Here's one of the finished JRTs:

You can have a look at the whole set, if you'd like. Why on earth did i paint twenty of these guys? They are for the Gulf Coast Jack Russell Terrier Network!

But enough about stuff for others, I've also been busy taking pictures of the skinny boys. Life as muses is demanding stuff!

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!

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!