Spring is here!

With the weather changing and all the flowers blooming...I can tell Spring has arrived.

Watercolor 12" x 12"

IF--Muddy

Rufus had a difficult time not getting all muddy!

IF - - Focused

Maggie is so focused on her bowl of food!

IF-- wilderness

Nothing like mother and child out in the wildness.

Happy Birthday "Just Crazy About Dogs"

It's hard to believe that I started this blog 4 years ago today. When I started Just Crazy About Dogs blog it was to keep the creative juices flowing and also a place to see my work progress.

Since starting my blog, I've moved from Washington State back home to California. Two of my beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniels have gone to the rainbow bridge. We adopted a boy dog "Coco" from the shelter and I'm waiting for a new Shih Tzu puppy to be born hopefully sometime this year.

As for my creative outlet, I take an on-going Chinese brush class once a month, which has allowed me to become more loose with my style of painting. I've learned how to bind books and make them; I've developed the Finger Touch Stamper, which I have a patent pending; I finally opened an Etsy shop to sell prints and cards of my work; I've gotten rather involved with making greeting cards from rubber stamp images and lots of embellishments; But....most of all, I create art every day. I think without having this blog I would of gotten lazy and not make the effort to create. So I'm rather thankful that I could have this forum to share my work.

So a heart felt "Thank You" to all those that have visited.

IF--Confined

This weeks illustration Friday's word is "Confined". I liked the idea of the bird being free and the flowers being confined in his cage.

Papillon's anyone???

This is another dog I was considering getting was a Papillon. There known for their butterfly ears. They look rather fragile, but are quite a hardy dog. After visiting several breeders, I decided that this was not a breed for me. Very hyper, cute but hyper. Who knows I might change my mind about the breed.

Birds of Murano

A couple of years ago I spent a fabulous week in Venice, Italy. While there I fell in love with this beautiful bird flower vase. Unfortunately the birds on the vase are so fragile that I'm not able to use to display flowers in;instead this vase sits in my hutch.

cavalier on couch

I've been going through my moleskin finding drawings that needed to be complete. I sometimes start a drawing and if I feel it's not working I put it aside and revisit at another time. With this drawing I wanted to include my harp in background with the dog lounging on the couch.

Shih Tzu puppy sleeping

I've been on a waiting list for almost a year for a Imperial Shih Tzu puppy. While the mother dog had puppies and this was one of the female fur babies available. I really had my heart set on a Chocolate fur baby, seriously thought about buying her. After three days of uncertainty I decided not to get her ...I hear she went to a good home. So I'm still waiting for my Chocolate fur baby.

I really like the way this goddess turned out. I created her in my moleskin using colored pencils, watercolor pencils, and acrylic paint. I think it's just a matter of practicing drawing faces before I really feel comfortable doing them.

Goddess with lots of hair

With this goddess portrait I did this using watercolor pencils, colored pencils, acrylic paint, and rubber stamps.

Goddess #6

With each portrait I seem to be getting more comfortable with doing portraits.

Goddess with black hair

On this goddess I used colored pencil for the shading.

Goddess #4

I think my goddesses are getting better. Figuring out how to shade the face and trying to get the nose just right.

Goddess #3

Another goddess using neocrayon in my moleskin. The right eye looks a little wacky.

Goddess #2

Here is another attempt at drawing goddesses in my moleskin. I made the mistake of using both sides of the page,which unfortunately cut the portrait in half.

Portraits of goddesses

I took an online goddess portrait class, learning how to draw faces in my moleskin. This was my first attempt.

Collages

I forgot I had completed this collage piece that I did in my sketch book. This piece is a 2 page spread using napkins, digital art clips,watercolor paint, oil pastels, and markers. When trying to do collages in a sketchbook, I discovered that if I glued 2 or 3 pages together, the collage stayed some what flat and the paper didn't bleed.

Doing collages seems to be a several step process and waiting for the layers to dry before a new layer could be applied. I think this piece took me a total of 12 hours to complete.

Happy New Year!!! 2010

OK, 2009 was kind of a rough year and I'm so glad it is over! I'm not going to post goals for 2010 because life has a tendency to take over; so instead I'm going to live in the moment and see what happens. All I know is that I want to draw, paint, and practice playing my harp everyday. I happen to find this photo of me taken back in 2004; I forgot how sometimes the simplest things in life make me smile.