Adventure Pets Strike Again!

Here they are again, that intrepid duo, no extreme pet sport too daunting for them...

Of course it's the CAT who notices they are flying too low.

Or is he just getting carried away trying to chase the string?The dog is having a blast, unconcerned. Either way, its a wild ride.

You can click on some of these pictures to see them larger.

I can hardly wait to see these made into pillows...what fun its been painting

them.

Dog & Cat Adventure Pillows

Who says dogs and cats don't get along?




I hope nobody is going to tell me the technical reasons why the dog's equipment is never going to work..I know! But short of putting her in a diving bell, I decided to go with the wishful thinking model. (!)



Here are the VERY LOOSE pencil sketches for the two pillows....hilarious, and there were many other really cute ones, maybe someday they will make it out of the sketchbook and onto pillows too....Here is the next one, Hot air Ballooning. Further below you can see it on fabric just barely blocked in today....

Below is the chalk drawing work that I do before painting. Obviously I had to do a lot of figuring out on this one...I made them standing, since the floating legs didn't fit into the square format...

I had fun depicting them standing on each other's fins, which, if you have ever done any scuba diving with task management like loading lobsters into a bag, you know this is exactly what happens as you try to keep your balance, and work with your buddy, while you both try not to float all over the place.
Here are the backs:

The pillows are for a very special room that serves as guest room to 2 little granddaughters of the people who commissioned these pillows. In a subsequent post, I will show some of the painted furniture in the room that i did some years ago. these pillows should fit right in...and obviously the dog and the cat are modeled after real pets in the household. You can see Kona, the dog here:P.S. - Pillows Delivered sitting on my pillows back in June 2008. And The cat is shown here, on tile: Cat Portrait Tiles

Here is the Hot Air Ballooning one, just barely started, ...you will see it completed in the next post, in a few days!! In the meantime, don't try this on your pets! Unless they could maybe really bring you back an extra lobster.

Cat Portrait Tiles

Here is a set of 5 specially commissioned 8"x8" cat portraits on tiles.....oh yes, and a geometric one I did to fill up the tile stacker in the kiln!Click on the pictures to see them larger.

Here you can see the tiles before firing....And after....The likenesses are very good. I am amazed , and very pleased, at how well they turned out! Likeness is a tricky thing....

Before.....

After...... Before....After....

I am startled at how much this looks like the real cat!!

Before firing.....

And after.

These tiles will join others installed on the walls of an outdoor patio; a veritable Rougue's Gallery of cats. Later, I will have pictures of that on this blog.
And also better, less blurry, pictures of these tiles...