Friday, December 17, 2010

A Doggy Christmas



Here is some art I made for my girlfriends in Bible study. We each have a dog and I was inspired one day by a doodle I had done of Kassie the Collie when she was visiting at my house.
Well, one thing led to another and I used the characters I drew of each of the dogs and created a repeat pattern for gift wrap and gave each dog a toy wrapped in the paper this week for Christmas. The dogs loved it! :)

The wrap was quick and dirty and not particulary Christmassy, but with the characters on separate layers and the wonders of photoshop, I decided to group them together in a Christmas card.

My dog is the Airedale named Mack. He came to me as a rescue in June. I drove up to Oregon from the Bay Area to pick him up, trusting the rescue group who told me he was a really good dog. Here is a picture of what he looked liked when I first saw him. Oh, he was skinny! We took two days to drive home and he slept the entire way he was so exhausted from running as a stray for who knows how long.

Well, here he is today! He has gained 15 pounds and grew in some hair on his legs.
In November we had a new Petco move into our neighborhood and they had a photo shoot special where you could get your dog photographed against a white screen. He is still a puppy and gets very excited if a blade of grass moves, so it wasn't easy to get him to sit for a portrait.


The photographer was sooooo patient and managed to get six great shots of him. Several had to be cropped because I was in the shot holding his rear end down so he wouldn't move. Isn't he cute? What a great dog he has turned out to be.


10 comments:

Patti said...

OOOOHHHHH I love the last one of Mack. He is turning his head in such a curious way. How cute! And I love the paper!

Laura Zarrin said...

Love the paper and the actual dog. What a big sweety!

Karen Lee said...

Sweet dog - adorable art!

Lori said...

I just LOVE that paper and card. I want to buy some. I bet Petco would eat that up!
I used you owl paper the other day and it was the first time I was excited to wrap gifts, ever! I even proudly told everybody I was friends with the illustrator. ;)

Alicia PadrĂ³n said...

awwww look at macdaddy!! Love him.. hee hee.. he is so darn handsome and I think he knows it ;o)

The card turned out cute! Got to love Molly with that cute pose :o)

Phyllis Harris said...

Oh my goodness!! I LOVE the paper and the doggy Christmas card! Have you ever thought of doing fabric design? The doggies and the repeat pattern would make fantastic fabric!!

Phyllis Harris said...

Oh and I love Mack, too! He's really handsome!

Deb said...

Thanks Patti...that little cock of the head was right before he leaped on the photographer....haha....

Thanks Karen and Laura. He is the biggest sweetie of any dog I've had.

Oh, Lori....thank you. Yes must do something with those doggies.

Hey Ali....I kinda think he does know how good looking he is. He definitely demands to be the center of attention! Men! :)

Thanks Phyllis. Well actually I did have some fabric for Robert Kaufman come out this year. Gonna work on those doggies...they would be really fun to do a collection with them!

Rena Jones said...

Love the dogs!

roz said...

Deb, I always love reading about Mac and love SEEING him even more. He's just so cute. Happy for you both. xo