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!

Cove, the Wii, and spots!

A quick mention of a custom portrait I made for Emily of Dreameyce. Meet Cove the catahoula leopard dog, and Kiwi the teeny pretty pit bull!


The shell has undergone some minor alterations to make Kiwi look a bit more like herself. This is a shot of the shell before it was finalized. But you get the idea. The shell looks even better in person, if i say so myself!
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Also, another new shell up in my shop! This is a Dalmatian on a soft shell clam.

I love how he came out. Soft shell clams are a great canvas - their texture is almost paper-like and they're so smooth, they take to paint really well. Alas they're brittle. I coat the back of the soft shell with varnish so that they have a little more strength to them. This guy is on a fairly large soft clam (their size range is different from my typical Atlantic clams, and this guy is one of the bigger ones I've painted).

The dalmatian is available in ShellVergel!

Three English Gentlemen

I finally got a little painting achieved! I've got a bit of a theme to them! I bring you three gentlemen from England - the English Springer Spaniel, the English Setter and the English Pointer!

Dogs from the British Isles dominate the sporting group, with the pointer, all of the setters, several spaniels and most of the retrievers. They come with boundless energy, loving temperaments and the loveliest, softest eyes :)


English Springer Spaniel.


English Setter.


English Pointer.

As always, you can find these shells and others on ShellVergel.
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Another reminder - if you are interested in getting a custom shell portrait for the holidays, please try to get your order in by Saturday, November 1st.

I miiiight be taking custom orders later in November depending on my school schedule. I will not be painting in December at all, due to preparation for finals, sorry.

So get any custom orders in ASAP please! It can take me up to two weeks to paint a custom portrait, so time counts!

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.