All Dogs Go To Heaven

Baby.  2013, 4" x 4" acrylic on cradleboard.

Growing up, we had Great Danes as family pets.  There are plenty of baby pictures of my brothers and I with our gentle, horse-like dogs.  One can imagine that it was quite a transition in 2001 when I talked my parents into rescuing Baby, a toy French poodle.  This tiny dog stole all of our hearts, including my dad's (though he had some nicknames for him not fit to print).  Baby hit a few rough patches in his later years when the neighbor's dog quite literally tried to eat him.  He died in May, shortly after mom & dad sold the house we lived in for 20 years.  RIP Baby, 1999-2012.

My mom had her 54th birthday yesterday, and it was the first in many years we have been together to celebrate, and also the first without the Babe.  It was so nice to be together.  I painted her this little portrait of him in the stars (or the snow...he was an Ohio dog, after all).  It took a long time for him to come to life in the painting.  The eyes are always the most difficult.  Once I had the right brushstroke around the face, I could almost feel his soft fur & hear him yipping in the distance.