Dogs Helping Dogs

As of about 4 months ago, we have a new dog! His name is Arrow (formerly Scout, formerly Bingo) and he's a terrier mix. He doesn't look much like a terrier, but when he was picked up roaming the streets of Auburn CA, he was with two other dogs that were assumed to be his brothers and they really looked like terriers. I'm pretty sure he also has some chihuahua in him, and who knows what else. The three brothers were picked up by Placer County Animal Services and Bingo was transferred to Auburn Area Animal Rescue Foundation (AAARF) where he became Scout. I saw him on their Facebook page and was smitten.



I had some conversations with his foster mom and we determined his personality and temperament would be a good fit for our nearly 10-year-old female Border Collie, Magpie. "Scout" became "Arrow" because of the dog in "The Point", an animated movie I loved as a kid. I have a list of potential names for pets and "Arrow" has been on it for a long time. It's a perfect name for a buddy-type dog and this new guy fits that mold; he's very sociable and loves going places with me. Magpie would much prefer to stay home, play with her tennis ball and associate only with the handful of people she knows well.



When we adopted Arrow, I made a deal with AAARF - I'd pay part of the adoption fee and donate some art for the balance. The art I donated was a new, original painting of an English Springer Spaniel, Charleen. I took the reference photos of the dog at an AAARF event at Fortezza Winery - Charleen belongs to the owner. The painting was put in a silent auction at another AAARF event and the winery owner bid on it and won. It's a full circle kind of thing and the reason I titled this post "Dogs Helping Dogs" - Charleen is a rescue, Arrow is a rescue and we're all working together to help AAARF in their rescue efforts.


"Charleen - Watercolor on Yupo, 4.5" x 5.5"

One of these days, Arrow will be the subject of a painting and of course, when it sells, I'll donate part of the proceeds to AAARF. I'll be forever grateful that they rescued him. He's a very special dog and I'm thrilled that he's ours!

And while I'm on the subject of rescue "Dogs Helping Dogs", I'll give a mention to Yolo County SPCA, who initially took in my little Bichon/Poodle friend Sammy Bourke. I did a portrait of him a while back and had promised Sammy's Kind Friend (owner) that I'd donate part of the sale of that painting to the YCSPCA.

"Sammy - Watercolor, Ink & Color Pencil on Art Board, 4" x 4"

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A Golden Retriever Refreshed

Recently, a pet portrait client of mine contacted me for help in re-vitalizing the artwork of the NorCal Golden Retriever Rescue's (NGRR) logo. My client is an area rescue coordinator for NGRR and I've done portraits of two of her goldens and will be doing more portraits for her in the future. NGRR has been using this artwork for years but the originals have been lost and the versions they have are degraded and/or low-resolution. My client wants to make some decals and other items for the organization and the current art just wouldn't do. Of course, there were time and budget constraints as well.



Since the existing art is iconic for the organization, I couldn't do a complete overhaul, but the files I had to work from weren't very helpful. I enlarged them to the size I wanted for the new drawing and they were pixelated and grainy. I told her I would do my best to make the new art look like the existing work, but the drawing would be different. I decided on a pen & ink drawing as the best way to go. It would be the quickest, most affordable option and it will also reproduce well for various purposes.

Below are both versions enlarged; I think you can see the challenges in working with these two images!



I wanted to do the new drawing at approx. 5" x 7" - so I enlarged both existing images to the same size and printed them out. I traced over the old black and white version with pencil, tidied up the pencil drawing and then started inking. I had to do a lot of guessing and interpretation as I tried to use information from both of the old, fuzzy images. I'm pretty sure the old black & white version was either a half-tone of the color image or a pen & ink version drawn somewhere along the way.


The final drawing is a hybrid of both of the old images. I didn't want it to be as dark and blocky as the black & white image, but since I was using pen & ink, it's darker than the color image. The new drawing is not what I would have done if I'd had free reign to start from scratch, but I think it captures the spirit and intent of the original art and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

To see my really detailed golden retriever portraits in ink on scratchboard, click here.
I also did a fun portrait of a happy golden in color, click here for that one.

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