Dozer The Bulldog

"Dozer"

© rebecca collins / artpaw.com

 Earlier this week I heard from an old client. I was very saddened to learn that Dozer the Bulldog had passed away a few months ago.  He left his humans for the rainbow bridge just shy of his 13th Birthday.  Thirteen seems like a nice old age and yet they are never with us long enough. My heart goes out to his family.

Dozer's folks have a new Bullie named Newt and I am fortunate to get to do a painterly style portrait of Newt this month.  Dozer was one of my earliest bulldog projects ordered by one sister as a gift to the other.  In thinking about this special guy and his project I realized that his Warhol styled portrait that I created over 10 years ago was a break through piece for me in many ways. It is one of the first pieces where I started drawing lines on top of the pup and I even added a tentative paint drip in the bottom left corner. Up until that point I had really just been playing around with filters. I probably did not even have a wacom tablet yet so I am sure my lines were drawn old-school with the mouse.  This sort of experimentation back in 1999 must have been the seedlings for my current painterly style of working today. Thanks to Dozer for being my muse.

"detail of Dozer line work"

Original photo below.

In looking for images for today's post I found what I needed on Disc #2 out of thousands of archived images on cds.  Some of my clients have been on a very long art journey with me. I am so grateful to all of my clients for allowing me to celebrate their love for their fur-kids.  I do have the best job on the planet for an animal lover.

Dec. 16. 1999