Frankie, a winning wiener.

As mentioned before in this blog, the 8th Annual Wiener Nationals happened at Highway two weekends ago. It was a hilariously fun day full of cute dogs and many kinds of mustard. Two lucky wiener dogs won portraits of themselves as prizes. 

Which brings me to my introduction of Frankie. Frankie is one of the cutest wiener dogs I've ever seen and when the three pictures of him were sent to me as options to paint, I was happy that Chris and Jen's favorite was also mine. 

So here is Frankie in all his cuteness. 

(this has got to be one my favorite paintings so far!)

HBD Audra!

Audra is one of the first friends I had in college.We met at orientation and then had the majority of our classes together. She's fantastic and fun and I'm thankful for having her be a hilarious sidekick in college.  She's a fellow kitty lover and a squirrel whisperer (I promise, they speak the same language). So for her birthday, I thought it only appropriate that a squirrel be on her card.

Ornery Harley.

So after Iroh we adopted Harley. She was the cutest on the website when we looked at the Dumb Friends League and when we met her she wasn't the friendliest but something about her drew us to her. She has taken longer to warm up but she is slowly getting there - and it makes her affection that more meaningful.

Here she is.

I got some wood at Hobby Lobby that has a lot more texture and experimented with it for this piece. I like it, pretty cool. Probably not perfect for ALL projects but I think it has potential.

My Sweet Iroh.

Iroh was our first pet. We adopted him as a kitten and he was about 3 months old and had a cold but we adopted him anyway. We were totally smitten from the git-go with this one. He had the biggest personality for such a little kitten. We brought him home and he became the BEST pet I have ever owned. He played fetch, loved to cuddle and regularly slept on Ben's pillow or in between us. He regularly had colds and respiratory issues but was still fun loving and would just tire easily when playing. He would have to take frequent rests. 

In about October of last year, after having him for a year and half, he developed a serious bladder issue. We took him to an emergency vet one night (where we learned about a heart condition he had all along), then to our regular vet the next. And then the next day he took a turn for the worse. Ben and I made the heart wrenching decision to put this little guy down because he was so so sick and would never really be able to lead a full life and wasn't much they could do for him. It was awful, terrible, I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone. Together we had never experienced so much pain or sadness. I know my heart will always be a little broken because of it.

Luckily, we were able to adopt again and love another critter, Harley. She is very different than Iroh in every way possible and we adopted her when she was a little older than 1. So we're still getting used to her and she us, but she's a sweet cat and learning to love and slowly cuddle the way Iroh did.

With ALL of that said, I have never painted any of my own pets. With Iroh it felt too personal and too soon. But, I took the plunge this week to paint him, had a meltdown looking at all his sweet pictures and then gained my composure enough to finish this painting. It was a good healing step for me and I now more fully understand what pet portraits can mean to someone, especially once their critter is gone. I'm now painting Harley (so she won't be jealous ;) ) so hopefully that'll be up here soon too.

Hazel Prudence

Our church every year hosts the Wiener Nationals, a day of hot dogs and wiener dog races with about 75 wiener dogs (last year's number approximately). This year as a part of the grand prize, the winner will get a free pet portrait done by me. I wanted to have some pet portrait as an example for that day so people could get excited and know my work. Which brings us to Hazel.

This is Hazel, as a puppy. She is owned and loved by Dean and Diane, two people at our church and they have two wiener dogs, Hazel and Abigail. Diane and I started talking about painting, had a painting day together and I used her sweet Hazel as the example for the Wiener Nationals.

Santa Cruz Pelican

This is the painting that sort of accompanies the seagull. Both of these photographs were taken on the same day on the Wharf in Santa Cruz. This pelican was very friendly and loved this man who kept hand feeding him fish. Once the man left, he posed a bit for some pictures for me. This one isn't as much a favorite like the seagull but was a good exploration in watercolor for me.

Santa Cruz Seagull

This has to be one of my favorite things I've done in awhile, especially since I'm still getting the hang of watercolors. I don't feel like the scan does it justice. I did this painting from a photograph I took while in Santa Cruz. The seagulls are everywhere and I feel like they pose for pictures just for me.  This one was sitting on the edge of the railing. I have one coming up of a pelican in the same look and then I'm currently working on a sea lion painting. Hopefully I'll finish it soon so I can share it here.