Helping out the Border Collies...

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I came up with this t-shirt design for

Great Lakes Border Collie Rescue

today...I hope they like it..I planned to go in a completely different direction but this is what my imagination served up this afternoon... I think it would be great on a shirt. I am so glad to be crossing some of these things off my 'to do' list...Now there are no more excuses for me to not go down and paint tomorrow! The danger of having the painting studio and office separate: I can't just get up and saunter over to the easel to paint on a whim like I used to...of course on the flip side when I'm down there painting it's completely uninterrupted, aside from silly

Alice

demanding some play time every now & then...and once in a great while

Izzy

checking in...my poor old girl is really slowing down.

Dogs Rule Art

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This was the secret project I blogged about the other day...I was asked by Jill  Beninato of www.sitstaysmile.com to be part of a 'fat book' called 'Dogs Rule'. "Fat books" are small books of a certain size that contain pages created by a pre-determined group of artists. They are called fat books because the pages are often embellished with ephemera that make the final book fat when it is bound. Embellishment is optional... Since I was really stretched for time I couldn't take the risk of trying something new...instead I stuck with what I do best. That's Alice with my 14 pages...all original paintings on matte board, a lot of work but it was fun! There are 13 other amazing artists who will contribute, we each get a book filled with pages from one another and the 14th one will be auctioned off on ebay with the proceeds going to artist Bernie Berlin's charity A Place To Bark please visit her links to find out about the amazing work she is doing to save homeless pets, rehab them and find them homes (she is a remarkable human being and artist). Stay tuned for more info on the auction & finished books!

Canine Muses...

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And you wonder why I paint dogs...this photo is a perfect example.

If you don't have one (or more)...I encourage you to adopt one as soon as possible. Not only will it make every day of your life that much sweeter but there are a tremendous number of homeless pets waiting in shelters at this very minute. Yesterday alone, Chicago Canine Rescue (Alice's Guardian Angels) received over 200 requests to take in destitute animals throughout the Midwest. Many are coming from the flood zone, animal hoarder situations, and from Tennessee where the HSUS seized over 700 animals from a puppy mill. They desperately need adopters and foster homes so they can help more dogs. Wherever you are there are animals waiting for homes and you can find them quickly at PetFinder.com. This little gal could be yours, she is waiting for you at Chicago Canine Rescue:

Using My Art to Help Our Furry Friends

Tree House Animal Foundation has their Annual Stray Cat Strut on Sunday, May 4th. I created the design for this Annual Fundraising Event. These folks know kitty cats and they do such good work to find homes and improve the lives of so many of Chicago's homeless felines and other animals too.

Chicago Animal Care & Control Will be using my banner design again for Be Kind To Animals Week, May 4-10, 2008. The banners will hang at Chicago's City Hall in the Loop.

Other Pet Welfare Events Going on this weekend:
Bark in the Park the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society's 5k Walk & Fundraiser.

Last weekend the  Humane Society of Berks County held their annual Art for Arf's Sake charity art auction. I donated this Smiling Black Dog Mounted Print:

Logo Sketches

I'm working with Executive Director Melanie Sobel to create a new logo for the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission. Melanie made some wonderful changes in her years at Chicago Animal Care & Control, implementing progressive programs that helped change their mission,philosophy and culture. Animal placement increased by nearly 150%, and animal euthanasia decreased by nearly 20%. She is hoping to bring some of these programs to MADACC. She is very dedicated and I'm honored to be working with her again on this project that we hope will give a more friendly and warm image to this institution which down the road we hope will adopt out it's strays.These were my initial designs...too whimsical and busy for a logo so I went back to the 'drawing board'. Stay tuned to see which direction we went.

Art Sharks at the Shedd...

Sharks_4

I just received my invite to the cocktail portion of Friday night's Art Sharks Fundraising event at the Shedd Aquarium. This is a thank you for donating my painting "More Frisbee Focused Pups". The premise of the event is a clever concept ... complete with 10 second induced feeding frenzy. Names are drawn from a hat every 10 seconds... those called dart over to their preferred piece of art and tag it. Tickets are $600 for two guests and one piece of art, $450 for one guest and one piece of art or $3000 for a table of ten and five pieces of art. Quite a nice return for the price of admission and a lot of fun. Check out the Program of available art.

Petey...Alice's 2nd cousin once removed?

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I subscribe to the Chicago Canine Rescue Newsletter, today's jarring statistic: Only 16% of owned dogs are adopted from animal shelters! I just can't get my mind around that number, it makes me very sad.

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This adorable guy, Petey, is available for fostering. He looks so much like Alice did at that age, breaks my heart. Izzy, our senior who we think turns 14 sometime this year(98 in dog years) has about all she can take with Alice careening around the house. The vet we adopted her from estimated her age at 9-12 months in November of 1995. So in the mean time, I'll just try to spread the word about all these sweet pups looking for homes. This is Alice the night she was brought to our home for fostering, she was about 3 months old...you can't get cuties like this from breeders.

Adopt A Pet In The Park...

I donated the design of this Ad for Chicago Animal Care & Control's upcoming pet adoption event in Lincoln Park on October 14th. The full design has a lot more text etc. I made this one for postcards and another for possible t-shirt printing. Watch for it in an upcoming issue of the Chicago Reader. I hope it brings lots of people out for the event so more of Chicago's homeless pets find good homes.