Please...

My daughter's family has two dogs. They have had "Uncle Wally," a cockapoo, for several years. He's a cute little ball of hair. About five years ago they decided that Wally needed a friend - another dog, but with a big bark.

Before Wally, they had had a golden retriever - a wonderful family dog, good with children and loved by all. So, a golden puppy was introduced to the household. "Professor Gilbert" was an adorable ball of fur, about the same size as Wally...but not for long. Gilbert grew and grew...and maintained his puppy-ness!

This is a busy household - four girls with sports schedules, sleepovers, etc.  - and not a lot of time to train a puppy. Before we knew it, Gilbert was an enormous animal who was always retrieving and destroying things things like shoes, pieces of clothing, lacrosse balls - you name it.  Whenever I visited and showed him the slightest attention, he jumped all over me and then 'retrieved' my wrist - which ended up in his mouth!

Eventually a 'dog whisperer' was called in...

A month or so ago, my son-in-law posted a picture of Gilbert with the caption "I think Gilbert wants something."  Too cute, I had to paint it!

I love painting animals in pastel. So I began with the pencil sketch and few blocks of color.

The original photo was of Gilbert on the hardwood kitchen floor. When I began to add the floor color, the whole painting was the same color so I changed the floor to imaginary rug/grass...or something blue-green that would contrast with the golden dog.

Here's the finished painting. I love the way his jowl is sort of hung up on his paw.

I am thinking of calling this "Please..."                     BTW, the dog whisperer worked...

Un-staging the condo

As promised in my February 1st post, I am sharing some more sketches of the 'stuff' in the condo that we rented in Puerto Rico.

Each year when we arrive, the condo is 'staged' for guests. There is all this cutesy tropical beach 'stuff.' It looks very welcoming and vacation-y.

After getting our groceries put away and our suitcases unpacked we begin 'un-staging.'

We move things around... the artificial plants, ceramic knick knacks, bowls of various sizes, a table here and there, baskets of books - you get the idea.

There was a very big planter of bamboo by the sliding door to the balcony.

Then another big planter with a very fuzzy palm tree against a wall where we like to put our 'computer desk.' It goes over by the bamboo for the time being.

Breakable ceramics go under a shelf in a safe space - not where we can accidentally knock them off onto a tile floor!

There are a couple of other ceramics on the walls. We didn't move them, but just thought it would be fun to try to draw them without getting dizzy...

Small wooden containers with dried arrangements on the dresser were interesting. Didn't move them, but were careful when we shut the dresser drawers that we didn't shake anything loose.

A few more large ceramic vases of interesting shapes, colors and textures...

There are interesting bowls of various shapes on table tops. Some of them are full of 'things.' This one had colorful string balls. The kind of thing we used to make as kids. You blow up a balloon, dip colored string in flour paste, wrap it around the balloon, let dry and then deflate the balloon.

And, of course, several smaller pots of orchids of different sizes and colors  - here and there around the condo. Only sketched one - in the tropics...orchids are everywhere!

So, the only bad thing about any of this is trying to put it all back the way we found it when we arrived! It occurred to me we should have taken pictures of the original staging... that would have made it a little easier.

I wonder if I will remember to do that next year...