This is Smoke. He is a greyhound belonging to a family who emailed me after reading the write-up about my dog drawings on the blog Dog Art Today. It is difficult to draw a dog (or really much of anything for that matter) from a photograph. But for me it is an interesting exercise now and then, especially when the picture is of such a graceful sinewy creature as Smoke. I much prefer drawing from life, when I occupy the same physical and temporal space as my subject. At the very least, if I draw from a photograph, I like to have been the one taking the pictures, capturing the images to study later on with my line drawings. That said, I still couldn’t resist sketching this beautiful dog. I hardly do him justice, to be sure.
I have been in the studio a bunch lately. Drawing some, gathering images to update my website gallery, working in wax, making baby gifts. I am enjoying this time immensely, especially knowing that Tornado Season (in other words, puppet season/ full time work for awhile) is right around the corner. I know that my studio time suffers in the spring as I am stretched far too thin with teaching, doing puppet shows and keeping up with my busy kids. This will be Jeni’s and my 3rd season on the road with the Red Cross’s Wind Around the Toybox production. It’s an intense season but it is just that, a season. This year, I think we see it for what it is and we are ready for the hard work and high energy level these shows demands of us. Last year we saw over 10,000 children in the Tri-State area, providing a not-so-scary approach to Tornado Safety for little people. It’s a great job and I am lucky to have it. Shows will start up in February sometime and go through May and it is during this time that I will have to fit studio art into the available little spaces I find here and there. That will have to be enough.
Until then, however, all’s quiet, except for the howling wind outside. I have a fire going in the fireplace, the wax table on means the windows have to be open and a fan on for exhaust, but I bundle up and play there while I have the opportunity.
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