Drawing for charity auction, plus a random sketch

Happy Sunday!

Today, I finally finished a small drawing for the Animal Alliance of Canada, a local animal charity who is planning an art auction for October as a fundraiser. All artworks are to be 4" x 4", so I decided to create a drawing of Ran (mother's dog) in a snowy background, since he's mostly white and would look cute surrounded by snow. Here is the drawing (below):

Pen and pencil crayon drawing of Ran

Two versions of the dog drawing

I started off with the puppy more centered on the page, but decided to make him bigger and closer to the bottom for the final. I might finish the other one off in a similar colour and give it to my mother in a few months (when it's actually snowing). Ran is pretty photogenic–always smiling and happy. I based this painting on a photo of him that I took last week, below (with the red body harness). This is how he looks ALL the time. 

Ran the dog--just over a year old

In other non-dog related news, I also did a small drawing of Matt walking into a flying cicada. It was pretty funny to see, as cicada's only come out once every 17 years (!) and they're humungous. We were heading out to a new bar in our neighbourhood when this happened and I remember it was totally weird to see such a large insect flying drunkenly into his face. Matt recalls the insect having "red eyes" and making a loud noise as it heading directly for the side of his eye. Bizarre!

Cicada hitting Matt on the side of his face.

Anyway, wish me luck with the auction! Woo-hoo!

Also, I've just created and Instagram account, so feel free to follow me there too. I haven't posted anything there yet but I'll start doing so real soon. Have a great week!

Drawings for our parents

Over the past month, I spent some time making illustrations for my mother and M's parents, for no particular reason (see below).

I have more free time these days, so I thought that they would be nice gifts for our parents, since they're easy for me to make but personalized enough that they might enjoy them. I always feel a bit awkward that M's parents are always so nice to me and I never really do anything for them in return (except show up at their house). Hopefully these small contributions can act as a form of appreciation, as I know that it's difficult to accommodate a finicky vegan city girl at the best of times. 

In other news, next week is Ran (the dog)'s first birthday! Yay! He is the light of my mother's life and such a wonderful companion that we decided to buy him a cake and celebrate in the park. Awwww.....dogs are such amazing creatures. 

M's parents with Shelby the dog

Drawing of my mother and Ran the dog