Tonight’s sketch of River Dog #drawing #doodle #sketch #pen #illustration #labrador

“We like snugglin’. Also, can you give us some chicken? Fanks.”

River and Calla, 2012. Ink and watercolor on drawing paper. As you might have noticed, I haven’t been doing much doodling lately. This is mostly related to the fact that wedding planning has consumed the vast majority of my free time. I did, however, do a little dog doodle to use as the front of our save-the-date postcards. Now I just need to get them printed and dropped in the mail, but it might be a while. This whole wedding planning thing… it is HARD.

Look closely—can you see River’s “cone of shame”? She got into a fight with another dog and ended up with two bites, one at the base of her ear and one on her leg. Both required stitches. She spent a long, scary day at the hospital yesterday, so we gave her this get-well-soon toy duck when we picked her up. She’s been carrying it around ever since. 

martinjosephpeters:

#riverdog #retriever #bestfriend (Taken with instagram)

This is my dog, River (Calla’s BFF). Martin took this photo this morning. A future dog doodle, for sure. 

We discovered a new (to us) HUGE dog park. Calla was so excited she drooled all over her face.

A walk in the park on Black Friday. Leaves were 75% off.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Late October, 2011. Just a couple of snapshots tonight. From top left:

• Calla and River snuggle up to Martin on the couch
• The dogs wait patiently in the kitchen
• Morning fog descends upon Portland
• Calla dons her pumpkin costume for about 3 seconds
• Calla listens suspiciously to trick-or-treaters on the sidewalk 

Happy dogs at the Columbia River.

River, pen and ink, 2011. We went over to a friend’s house the other night for a pumpkin-carving party. What started as an attempt to draw dog stencils for our pumpkins ended in a series of dog doodles, none of which could be used for pumpkin carving. We ended up talking politics all night long and never made it to the carving portion of the evening.

On the way home, as our giant pumpkin rolled around in the trunk of the car, crashing from wall to wall like a pinball, “Despite All My Rage” came on the radio. Yes, folks, we were smashing a pumpkin to the Smashing Pumpkins.

EDIT! Martin just emailed:

Just to let you know, the Smashing Pumpkins song is not called “Despite All My Rage.” It’s “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.”

My sincerest apologies to the mid-90s.

This is a doodle of Calla. When she’s hungry and begging for dinner, sometimes we joke with her by asking if she wants a “root canal.” (If you use the right inflection, dogs will think anything is a good thing.) So for Calla, “root canal” is synonymous with eating. Ask her if she wants a root canal, and she’ll cock her head to the side, furrow her brows for a second, and then scramble downstairs to the kitchen for food.

Calla and River circa fall 2009. Oil pastel on canvas paper.