Calla, as seen through the side door window. This is what we come home to every night. What can I say, she’s a little exuberant.

Peanut and Massey, 2012. Ink, watercolor and water-soluble crayons on watercolor paper, finished with tons and tons of fixative to make it super shiny. A friend asked me to paint her sister’s dogs as a Christmas present, and this is what I came up with. I have to say, I struggled with this one A LOT. I like the dogs themselves, but I changed the background color four times (no easy task) before finally accepting army green as the fate this drawing was destined to meet. I hope my friend’s sister likes it. 

Calla, ink on watercolor paper. This was another airplane doodle, done on the way to my honeymoon in Hawaii. 

It’s been a tough week for this country—the Christmas spirit can be harder to summon during times like these. “Merry” doesn’t seem right, but we try. We can hug our family a little tighter, add a little extra brandy to the egg nog and be thankful for the love and life that we have. May you and yours stay safe and warm this holiday season.

Happy Howlidays, take two! Created this one with SketchBook Pro—I wanted to have an output file high-res enough for printing. Maybe this year I’ll actually send Christmas cards… right after I finish up those thank-you notes from the wedding. =)

Calla surveying the beach, ink and watercolor, 2012. I posted a few work-in-progress Instagram photos of this during my mini-honeymoon, but never shared the final scanned-in piece. Watching the beach from her perch on the porch was Calla’s favorite activity that week. I’m not sure if it was the view or the smells or the sound of the ocean that intrigued her most, but she was mesmerized. Makes me wish we had a porch at home.

It’s a Callalantern! Or a Callantern? Or Calla-a-lantern? You know—a pumpkin with Calla’s silhouette carved into it. Happy Halloween!

Lucy, 2012. This is another take on the one-eared Lucy, also created on my iPad. For this I used a different app called SketchBook Pro. I wanted to try a program that offers more features—more brushes, more colors, zoom, high-res export files, etc. It took me a while to get a hang of how to use it (computers are so much fickler than paper and paints!). The result is a stylized-yet-realistic and almost animated look. It’s definitely not my normal style but it was fun to experiment. On an unrelated note, I’ve added an email subscription for those of you non-Tumblrers (is that a word?). If you sign up, you’ll get an email only on days that I post new drawings.

Charlie, 2012. I’ve never met Charlie, but he appeared in my Facebook feed today when a friend commented on a photo of him and his “Statue of Liberty” hairdo. Such a cute face—I had to doodle it. Created on my iPad (I promise I’ll post some non-electronic art soon).

Meet Lucy’s brother Otis. My coworker tells me that he has an obsession with citrus, to the point that he can smell lemons, limes and oranges in the refrigerator and will bark at the appliance until he can sink his teeth into some vitamin C. My coworker says she often finds rock-hard limes under the couch. This is my first draft of Otis, created on my iPad.

Meet Lucy. She is the beloved one-eared dog of my generous, kind-hearted colleague who graciously volunteered to be my wedding planner. Lucy lost her right ear to cancer, but she is a tough little cookie and has learned to live without it. I’m working on drawings of both Lucy and her brother Otis as a thank you to my coworker for her amazing help with the wedding. This was my first draft, created on my iPad.

Currently obsessed with drawing and sketching on my iPad. #madewithpaper #dogs #doodle #sketch #drawing (Taken with Instagram)

Calla goes dog surfing, 2012. Ink and watercolor on cold press paper. This is a scan of the  drawing I posted via Instagram last week. I glimpsed this moment as we left town via the St. John’s Bridge on our way to the coast for our honeymoon. Unfortunately, I didn’t move fast enough to catch it on film, and I couldn’t get the image out of my head.

I decided to recreate it using a different dog-surfing-in-the-sideview-mirror photo I took of the dogs a few years ago. I took River out of it, since it had only been Calla sticking her head out going over the bridge (I believe River was using the other window). Then I found images of the St. Johns Bridge on the good ol’ intertubes to use as a guide for the background.

What I love about this moment is the joy that Calla feels when she sticks her head out the window and lets the wind blow back her ears (a Springsteen reference for the Boss fans among us). It was exactly what I was feeling as Martin and I drove out of town: a road behind us, a world ahead of us, and nothing to do but enjoy the wonder that is life.

So… in lieu of productivity on this fine fall afternoon, I went ahead and discovered an awesome drawing app for my iPad that promises to suck the life out of my free time from now until eternity. It’s called Paper and it is pretty amazing. I now very desperately want a stylus.

Calla running on the beach, felt-tip pen, 2012.

I am officially married! Which means the dogs are officially sisters. =) We spent a lovely few days in Cannon Beach after the wedding. The dogs loved it: a beach practically all to themselves, just a two-minute walk from the house. For Martin and I, it was a much-needed respite from the craziness leading up to the wedding—and it gave me lots and lots of time to draw.

Martin took this photo during one of our walks on the beach. I loved it immediately because it captures Calla at the height of her signature “crazy run”—when she goes into a full-on, high-speed, unstoppable sprint, usually caused by her paws touching water or sand or gravel or wood chips or some other incredibly exciting surface.

I decided to forego the watercolors for this one and stick just to my favorite felt-tip artist pen. The silhouette almost reminds me of one of those intricate pumpkin-carving designs. Maybe if I get ambitious this year for Halloween I’ll attempt to give this one a whirl.