Dog Art Murals and Mosaics

Mosiac Mural from Tokyo

Ok ... one more post this week from Flickr finds. I searched for dog art murals and found some inspiring stuff. If you want to click through on the images you will land in the photographer's photo-stream.

(above) another shot of Hachiko mural outside Shibuya Station

(above) Mosaic mural created by 7th graders

Not all of my results are of actual dog art ...but I adore this image (above)



(above) looks like a detail from larger piece. Love the text... "Dog Talk Sad Dog"

(above) again... not dog art, but the capture of the lady & dog in shadow are great. The mural says: "I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world"
(above) odd painted mural from Amsterdam

You can hot-link and blog images over at Flickr unless the photographer chooses to set up their posting preferences to not allow it. If someone wants to share their images only via Flickr's interface they have that option. So on that note ...there were just a few additional images I wanted to share with you, but you will have to click through to see them. One is a nice capture of a mosaic outside of Diego Rivera's house. Then there is the pink poodle mosaic sign for Lala's. And last there is this white dog mosaic.

Next week I will share a few more finds with you. I do not want to burn you guys out on this stuff. The last few days of image posting have really inspired me. It is interesting that the crudest grafitti scribble can stimulate and excite your creative imagination as much as the sophisticated and well crafted work like the Tokyo mosaic.

Yet Another Dog Graffiti Wall

stilllifeonalazyday
Originally uploaded by urban penguin

The photographer that posted this image to Flickr calls this "Still Life on a lazy day". I love the composition here and that wonderful odd door. The other day when I woke up at 5:00 a.m. I spent an hour tagging doggy Graffiti images as favorites over at Flickr, so you may see a few more of my favorites later this week.

Flickr is just the coolest place on earth to search for images of any certain theme. You can enter the phrase "purple zebra" and probably find several results. I also have bookmarked some great dog art murals that I want to share with you tomorrow.

More Dog Art Graffitti

I really liked yesterday's dog art graffitti so I went searching over at Flickr for more cool graffitti dogs. I have posted a few below, you can click images to visit the photographer's photostreams.

The image above is a stenciled image of a dog getting friendly with R2-D2. It might be a tad crude for the Art Dog Blog, but I love this photograph with the pink & orange, it is a great shot.

This last image is my favorite.

Dog Grafitti, insomnia, and another work day

I woke up at 5:00 a.m today and now I can not get back to sleep. Decided to start the work day early, after maybe just a little web-stumbling. The image above is by grafitti artist Banksy. I love that image.
So speaking of insomnia ... here is a silly joke you have probably heard ....
Did you hear the one about the dyslexic agnostic with insomnia?
He lays awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.

Zaxby The Bulldog

"Zaxby"

Last Christmas I created a pet portrait for a little doggy named Zorro. I was quite tickled at his name. Well this week I worked on an even wilder named pup ... "Zaxby". That name would win you some points at Scrabble (if you could use proper nouns anyway). I am posting this handsome bulldog's portrait here. His original photograph was a total JOY to play with.

Go Vote

Supporter created video for Obama:


No matter where you cast your vote, change is in the air, breathe it in!

Cat Portrait "Cleo"

Today I worked on Cleo the kitty. Click here to see the original low res. image enlarged. This kitty was stunning and while the original image had some challenging resolution issues, the photograph did a good job of showing off the coat and pretty eyes on this kitty. The image below is experimental and just one of 5 proofs the we will be presenting to Cleo's humans.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

Please Don't Eat the Daisies
Originally uploaded by artpaw

Sunday ... not sure what to talk about today so I thought I would post some old artwork of my Pixel. Pixel has been with us for 2 years now ( I think ) .... that is sort of hard to believe. She was a Valentines gift. She is one funny Valentine. Our girl is shy and rather independent. She loves us now but we had to work hard to earn her heart.

King Squid Mosaic

I finished my most recent mosaic this morning. I like this guy a lot and can not wait to get him framed. I guess I have done 8 squid themed mosaics now. I am going to try to do one mosaic a month this year. I have so many projects in my head.

Cat Portraits "Patches"

Yes we do cat portraits. Been awhile since we posted any so I thought I would post Patches. We worked on this pretty cat earlier this month.

Who are your Mentors?

Who are your mentors in life? How many have shaped you and do you currently have a mentor? In my monthly brainstorming group among friends, my photographer pal Kris asked this question last month. In business I would have to say I do not have a mentor at present.

I would like to talk today though about a mentor I had at the age of 20. While in school I worked at Montgomery Wards in Denton and I had the most dynamic, hardest working manager on the planet, her name was Jimmie Holland. She was like 5 feet tall and yet she walked with a confidence that made good ol boys step aside. She was in her late 50's at that time and she was a role model, a surrogate Mom, and in general a force to be reckoned with. To say she was respected in business is an understatement. She had a long career with Montgomery Wards back during the days when sticking with a company was a sign of loyalty that would be rewarded. She made her way in business the way many women did back then, in high heels with a sense of humor and a strong sense of self that must have served her well in a male dominated work force.

Jimmie reinforced in me a strong work ethic that was already present and more than anything she lead by example. She was an important woman in my life that gave me confidence at a very impressionable age.
Jimmie Lee Holland died Sunday the 27th at the age of 83.

Pet Portrait Contest Winner "Rags"

Today I finalized the artwork for our "Cream of the Crop" contest winner. Rags is a stunning cow-dog with a challenging photograph. This pretty boy is no longer with Jamie so we had to work with the photos she had on hand. The image used was scanned and ended up containing a lot of noise or "grain". The other thing you will notice below is that once we erased Jamie this pretty boy was in hard profile staring up at nothing. I worked around this compositional challenge by giving him a ball to focus on. By placing that ball in the top left corner our eye will stop and not continue off the page. It also creates a story and a sense of play.
Scroll down to see a few of his proof choices. The 3rd proof down has the strongest "crop" and most unusual layout, however it is not really the most flattering.


I am really happy with how this pup's artwork turned out. You can see this boy's entire proof set by clicking here.
Rags was Jamie's soul dog and has been gone awhile. Even though this boy was really the four legged love of Jamie's life she had a tough time finding great pics to choose from, so let this be a reminder to all of us to get out the camera as often as we can. Shoot, shoot and shoot some more. These guys are with us such a short time.

Vanity The Sharpei

Vanity is a stunning Sharpei we worked on during the holiday season. This old girl's human sent us this terrific shot of Vanity ... admiring Vanity. I thought this shot was just way too clever, and have been meaning to post it all month. Her pet portrait is posted below.

How many of you guys have dogs that are self aware and seem to know when they look good, or maybe they pass by a mirror and get mesmerized with their own image? There is an interesting article over at Wikipedia about the mirror test developed by Gordon Gallup Jr to measure self awareness.

Squid, Bull, Pig ... Oh My!

Your Dog Will Dig It! Check out this very cool on-line shop for dogs. This Austin based business is a brick & mortar sort of place called Fetch, but if you can not make it to the coolest city in Texas then cool dog toys are just a click away. Go To: http://www.yourdogwilldigit.com/ And start spoiling your dog today with very fun and hard to find toys!
I asked Cynthia what her best selling toy is and she told me to check out the "i-bone". I'm sorry, but all I need is for my dog to understand how to program a plushy phone while I still struggle with my own. It is a great gift for the techie dog owner in your life.

Chocolate Lab Pet portrait

This is Hollywood's bold & experimental proofing option. The background was created from scratch and then duplicated and laid across the face using a layer effect. The sloppy paint line going across the face is intentional and probably not every one's cup of tea, but you never know. I have included a couple of details since it is hard to really see the layers of texture this piece has with a small web-image. Hollywood's entire proof set will be on-line tomorrow.

Golden Retriever Art

Bear's Mom ordered her 3rd portrait with us last week. She wanted to try out our Cream of the Crop Promo Special. I am still working on her proofing set, and hope to get her proofed Friday.

The top image is a painterly style Bear with an asymmetrical crop. The bottom image is the same digital painting pushed to some bold extremes. The bottom image is very flat ... the detail has been lost and replaced with more of a graphic illustration, digital art style with text about the Golden retriever breed overlaid in the background, along with a dog toy. I do not know where I am going with this look, just trying hard to push my boundaries and come up with a new style that will be a new direction. I will be experimenting a lot this year and while we will always proof with my proven painterly style and what we know works we will also try to throw in something brand new every now and then.

Bear's humans are wildlife photographers, visit them here:
http://www.teamhusar.com/

Squid, Squid and yes more Squid

People have been giving me squid things lately. It all started last year when I started doing mosaics of octopus & squid. Last week my teacher, Katrina Doran gave me the perky paint by number squid you see above. By the way check out Katrina's website ... she is super talented and has been very supportive of my work and my new adventure into mosaics.

At Christmas time Allison brought the dogs some squid-toys ... you can see how popular they have been below. Poor blue squid is loosing his guts, he seems happy though ... still smiling.

Anyway ...very excited that class is happening tonight. I always think oh gosh ...I do not want to get out and go to my mosaics class, but I always have the best time. Below is the last mosaic I finished in December as a present for Dan. The squid is to the left and he has thrown the ball for Big Tommy ( ball is green shape in top right corner).

Below is my current project. I really wanted to use some yummy and garish combo of pinks, reds and oranges. I have quite a way to go on this guy. His body is close to being done. All of my mosaic projects start life on the computer since that is where I am most comfortable designing these days. Working in a media that takes forever has really calmed me down, it is like my Yoga I guess.