Cicely The Dog

Here's some photos of Cicely the dog. I don't know this dog personally I sort of felt moved to paint her after surfing around Myspace one night. I did her this past week. She was a lot of fun to paint!

Worms on the Run

Progression of a Painting from start to finish.
I've started doing this with the digital camera and it's fun for me as you can start to see them dogs sort of poke their way out of the canvas.

Photo By Rene Lego

This is a painting I did of a dog named named "Bonnie" through a FlickR contact.
The painting ending up being a lot like the photograph. I am so grateful folks are sharing and emailing me their favorite dog photos, as with the kids I don't get time to go out and shoot photographs of "models". Do you have a favorite photo of your dog you think would make a good painting? Email them to me- I'll send you a photo of it if I use it. info **at**muttbutt.com.

Carolyn

Zephyr the Scottish Wolfhound

This is a new one I recently finished of Zephyr the Scottish Wolfhound. It's a huge painting 5 feet by 4 feet and currently towering over our living room until it goes to its new home.

It was such fun to paint.

I think it's my new favorite.

This painting was inspired by photographs taken by Zephyr's "mom" Jenya Campbell. Here's a link to her site on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sighthound/

Here is another inspired by Tonglen. They are Tibetan prayer flags.

I also used this as the main art on www.peaceism.com
(if you happen to check out peaceism.com it's not done yet- I am still working on it and waiting for other contributors to get me their writing. So it is there "as is". The myspace Peaceism page looks a little better www.myspace.com/peaceism and if you are a "myspacer" be sure be-friend it!)

Painting a Deep Breathe

Here's a painting that goes along with deep breathing. I painted it for a friend with a new baby, starting a new phase of her life. I tried to put my experience with the practice of Tonglen (described in "On Breathing") on the canvas. When I was painting it I kept thinking about the glorious healing space, it's potential with each breath, as it pulls us into the present moment, and what can be transformed as we hold it in, the space opens, then exhale.

Lee Harris and Story Waters have some visualization exercises on "The Freedom Sessions" that use a Shanti Chakra, which I found helpful to visualize while breathing. I called this one "Shanti Chakra with Silver Cord".