"Ruby"

Oil on museum quality ampersand gessobord panel - 8" x 8"

As you will see in my next post - I have become a new member of fellow daily painter Diana Moses Botkin's "Art Challenge Group." Challenge groups like these are very beneficial in exercising the little grey cells. Once a month a new subject is chosen and explored. The finished works are kept secret from the other members of the group until the day they are revealed and posted. This month's topic was "tools of the trade." As you can imagine, some of the group did not venture past the tools at hand in the studio. A wealth of material is there to be sure. I guess technically I, too, did not leave the confines of my workspace, but how many artists have a fully stocked bar in their studio? It's a good thing there is no Guinness on tap or I would get even less done than I do.

What does all this have to do with little Ruby here? I'm glad you asked. I almost used her as my "tools of the trade" painting. You see, Ruby was a tool of the trade, a casualty of a puppy mill. A retired breeding bitch, she was cast off and sent to a shelter after her usefulness as a breeder was gone. Her teeth are non-existent. Her jaw was broken and poorly set. Her tongue, with no teeth to hold it in, hangs from her mouth in a sad, but smile inducing sort of way. (I painted her "good" side, but she is adorable on both) Weighing in at a mere 8 pounds, even for her breed she is tiny. The shelter reached out to an Italian Greyhound rescue group and my friends down in Texas fell in love with their first Iggy. Ruby could not have asked for a better forever home.