Coffee with a Canine

This is just a quick post to bring you up to date on a bit of news. My dog-loving Canadian friend was interviewed on a really neat blog called Coffee with a Canine. The interview was about our relationship. Well, mostly it's about me.

outside Varandas Bar, journal sketch, ink and watercolour

I contributed this sketch from my journal. There are also a couple of photos with the interview. You can check it out here. Coffee with a Canine. While you’re there, have a look at some of the other posts. You’ll be introduced to a variety of people and their canine friends.

Tchao-wow!

the art of fish

relief print in journal (detail),  ink 

The feast that Rita and I were treated to a few days ago got me thinking about fish. Fish and art, that is.  You see, the person who cooked the fish was an artist with food. And the subject was fish. I was thinking about this and started to notice that fish inspire many artists. I see examples all around me. And I have been inspired by fish as well, and continue to be so.

I thought I’d give you a little taste of the variety of fishy art to be found here. Some of it is mine and some is just what I’ve stumbled across in my local wanderings. Unfortunately I don’t know who to credit for every piece, but if anyone out there reading this can give me information I’d be happy to add it.

mosaic on wall of bath at ruins of Milreu (click image to enlarge)

This is just a taste of the many incredible mosaics found at the ruins of Milreu near Estoi here in the Algarve. These were made by Italian artists about 2000 years ago. Each little stone that makes up the mosaic is only about the size of a piece of dog kibble. They must have worked like dogs to make this!

broken tile mosaic on wall

This is a much more recent fish mosaic found right here in Burgau.

sign outside restaurante in Carvoeiro

This one isn’t a mosaic, but it is made of many bits. In this case the fish are cut and shaped pieces of metal.

journal page, ink, watercolour and crayon

Fish are fun to doodle. There is such a variety in the colour, shape, and texture. I think you could draw a fish a day for the rest of your life and never repeat yourself.

painted platter (work in progress)

I was visiting my friend Lotte in Pereira. His person rescued him from a garbage bin when he was just a pup. Lotte and his person live in a house that also has a tile workshop where people go for lessons. This is a platter being painted by one of the students.  The subject? Fish of course.

interesting fish graphics on sugar packets

For some reason fish appear on these sugar packets. I’m not sure what fish have to do with sugar, but they did catch my eye. I think sometimes that's the sole purpose of an interesting image - simply to catch your eye. Well, I guess it worked.

   

My friend (er, aquaintance really - he's a bit too grumpy for me) Bossy Pants at Ancora

Well all this talk of fish has made me hungry. I’m off to the back door of Restaurante Ancora where the owner Rex is always eager to feed a ruggedly handsome dog like me.

Tchao-wow! 

Love is better than anger

I have a few Canadian friends through Facebook and it’s from them that I recently learned about an extraordinary man. His name was Jack Layton. He died on Monday.

journal page with ink, watercolour, inktense pencil, torn paper

He was something called a politician. I’m not familiar with this word. I asked my friend if it came from the word polite and she assured me that it’s unlikely, given the way most politicians behave.

But Jack was a different sort of politician. In fact, it seems that Jack differed from other politicians in more ways than this. He was kind. He was sensitive. Mischievous, affectionate, loyal.  Energetic, empathetic. Selfless. Determined. Hmmm, I thought: These words can be used to describe most dogs. From what I can tell by reading about him, he had the goodness of a dog with the vision of a humanitarian. He was a perfect hybrid of human and canine.

I realize that some people reading this might think this is a demeaning comparison, but keep in mind what I am. I am a dog and I know dogs. I trust dogs. I understand dogs. Dogs are pure and kind and good in a way that few people are. And any dogs who aren’t have a reason, and that reason is usually the fault of a human.  We aren’t perfect. There are elements of our nature that I’m not proud of. But as the generations pass we are working at becoming better.

I see Jack as having possessed all the good characteristics of a dog combined with all the good qualities of humans, including a formidable human intelligence. He used these strengths to work at making Canada and the world a better place for all. He respected people, animals, the earth. He worked for a better future.  Even as he was dying he looked to the future and wrote a letter to Canadians which concludes with a few powerful lines. If we all believe these words and live by them, indeed the world will be a better place.

   

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” - Jack Layton

wind in my fur

Driving back from Lisbon a couple of weeks ago it was quite hot in the car. Crème and I were in the back seat and Crème’s person put the windows down for us. I stuck my head out the window on my side and Crème stuck her head out hers. It felt good to have so much air blowing through my fur and making my ears flap. And with so much air come so many scents and of course we read the messages in the scents. We get so much information so quickly it’s almost too fast to process it. It’s dizzying. I think the closest equivalent experience for humans might be speed reading. They read extremely quickly and absorb a lot of information.

journal sketch, ink and watercolour

Crème’s person asked her why she liked to stick her head out the window but didn’t like it when someone blew in her face. What a silly question! Who (person or dog) likes to have someone’s hot stale breath blasted right up his nose? Not me, that’s for sure! 

nose to the ground

I’ve noticed over at Artist’s Journal Workshop Facebook group that I'm not the only one who likes to draw bugs. People seem to as well. Here’s a page from my journal.

You might not be able to read the text because I try to keep the size of images here fairly small so that the page loads faster. Here’s what I wrote on the page:

“I can’t get over how much more I appreciate things now that I take the time to draw or document them. I look at things more often and more closely. I mean really look. Slowly. It has to be slowly, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to draw. I’m still working on my eye-paw coordination. When my paws get tired I use my mouth to hold the pen, but I find that even harder because I can’t focus on the paper very well when it’s so close to my eyes.

I love the way the sunlight hits this yellow wall. I feel warm and sleepy just looking at it.

I’d never really looked at bugs so closely before. What strange creatures they are. What are they thinking as they scurry along in the dirt, climbing over enormous (at least enormous to them) twigs and leaves? Do they fear massive wind storms when I put my nose close to them to smell their iridescent colours?”

Here's what I see when I put my nose close to the ground.

Are you bug-eyed?

Do these bug you?

How close do you get to the things you draw?

Two dogs. One bone.

I've been up to my dewclaws in paint lately but I took a bit of  a break to hang out with Rita at her person's  bookstore yesterday. When I got there she was in front of the computer howling with laughter. She was watching a video on YouTube so she replayed it for me. It was pretty funny and it reminded me of a sequence of drawings I'd done in my journal a while back so I thought I'd share them with you.

But sometimes even one dog, one bone can be confrontational. Here's the video. Have a look.

Why do I keep an illustrated journal?

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Cathy Johnson’s blog (Artists’ Journal Workshop) about how we use our journals and what form do those journals take. For me, this whole adventure into art started simply as a way to pass time with my friends. We would be on the beach just hanging out and one of us would start to run around, taunting the others into chasing him.  We would go crazy running in circles and dashing off left and right, jumping, diving, digging.

Buddy digging his afternoon at the beach

Eventually we would lie down and take a moment to catch our breath. The patterns in the sand that our playing had made would be fascinating. We could read the patterns as if they were images, sometimes quite recognizable, but created all by chance. Soon I began consciously to make images in the sand. And I started to notice that I wasn't the only one doing this. People seemed to have the same impulse.

I'm not the only one making marks in the sand.

Then I found that I could make more controlled marks if I used a stick in the sand. I could drag it and actually draw with it. I also used stuff I found on the beach to add to the composition – stones, bits of plastic, shells.  All of this was so much fun that I wanted to be able to make marks or drawings wherever I was, not just when I was at the beach. I started to work on scraps of paper or cardboard I’d find in the rubbish bins.

Some of my first drawings on paper

I used sticks that I would dip in muddy water or in my café com leite. I loved that these images were more permanent than the ones I did on the beach.

a drawing of my friends under a palm tree

I enjoyed looking at them later, or showing them to my friends.  My first actual journals were made from scraps of paper I found – mostly old paper shopping bags.

journal made of scrap paper with a coffee bag cover

After a while I got my paws on some ink pens and eventually real paint and decent paper, although from time to time I still use sticks and whatever is at paw.

some more recent journals

Eventually my drawings became more refined as my coordination with my pen (or stick or brush) improved. What I record in my illustrated journals are things that give me pleasure– the object and/or the feeling of the moment, the way I feel as the sun slants through the buildings and warms me as I sit with my friends, or the smell of the colour of the fresh orange blossoms.

Caldas de Monchique

I touched on this topic a bit in a previous post (Yes, I’m an artist but I’m a dog first!). I said that when I do a sketch of someone, I feel like I am that someone in a way. I get under his or her fur. I walk a mile on her paws. There’s also an element of ownership when I paint or draw someone. Although I’m totally against the idea of owning someone, I do have a desire to have the ones I love be with me all the time.

my best friend Rita

If I have a drawing or painting of him or her, then in a way he or she is always with me. Does anyone else feel this way or am I one pup short of a litter?

When I sketch something I really take time to look at it, to notice nuances that I often overlook normally. The very activity of drawing something makes me appreciate it more, both for the simplicity of it and the complexity of it. But it’s also a bit strange because while I’m drawing I’m unaware of anything around me, like all my senses are focused on just what I’m drawing. But when I look back over my drawings later - months, even years later-  my senses are flooded with memories. I can feel the sun warming my back, I can hear the cats yowling around the corner, I can smell the sausage frying at Brizze Bar. It’s like I’ve put that moment of creating the drawing in a jar (or between the covers of my journal) to be opened and enjoyed later, over and over again.

Of course I can’t draw everything. There's just not enough time so I do take photos too and they have their place in my journals. They’re great if I see something I want to draw but don’t have the time to do it or the image itself is fleeting, or if I want to make a record of something that someone else has made, or to simply document something quickly. And I find when I look back over my journals my eyes appreciate the variety in the types of images I’m looking at.

In response to Cathy’s question, others have said that they use their journals for writing notes about everyday events. I do this too, sort of as a reminder of both the good and the bad, like “I had a really nice walk on the cliffs with the lady from Scotland who treated me to a cup of café com leite at Varandas afterwards.” Or “I ate some Frango Piri Piri from the rubbish behind Restaurante Castelejo last night and I got really sick. Note to self: DON’T eat food that smells brown, grey and green all at the same time.”

I apologize for such a rambling post. It’s kind of hard to describe why I keep an illustrated journal or how it makes me feel. When it comes right down to it I get more out of every experience now, even if I’m not recording it in my journal because I now experience everything around me more intently. It’s like I have super dog powers to see, hear, smell and taste more than the average dog.  Just call me Superuca!

it drives a dog to drink

In my last post I joked about a rescue mission for the dog being teased about food. It reminded me of this  page I did in my journal not long ago. If ever there was a dog in need of rescuing, this is one. 

journal page, ink and watercolours

I came across him in Luz, which is a tidy little village just east of Burgau. I’d spent a lovely afternoon walking along the cliffs, doing some birdwatching and sketching. In Luz I stopped by my person friend Meri’s shop for a drink of water (and she treated me to an organic dog biscuit – thanks Meri!). I did a sketch of a flower covered balcony just alongside Meri’s shop. As I was walking along the waterfront, heading back to Burgau, I came across this poor fella slumped beside an empty wine box. I tried to talk to him but he was pretty out of it. He barely looked at me, just gazed, unfocussed, out at the inviting rocky beachscape just on the other side of his prison. I hung around for a while, hoping his person would show up so I could give him an earful. No one ever did show up. Eventually I left. What could I do?

First post

So here it is, my first post. I'm getting into this whole blogging thing on the insistence of my bookstore friend, Rita, who is a pretty with-it dog. I will have to drink from that porcelain bowl of knowledge at numerous points along my internet/web/blog journey, I'm sure. I'm pretty naive when it comes to all this technology stuff, but Rita's a patient guide. And honestly, any excuse to spend more time with her is fine with me.

Rita's says I need to connect with more like-minded dogs (and even people) so that I can get a taste of the wider world. She says that sharing experiences, observations, opinions, and perspectives is healthy for dogs, and especially dogs who are artists. She thinks it will help make my work more universal if I'm able to put my experiences and observations in a world context. Sheesh, she can get pretty wordy by times. But I guess she's right. Time will tell.

So, if you've read my profile you already know that I became an artist gradually, starting with making random marks in the sand and progressing to the point I'm at now, keeping an illustrated journal of my life.

an assortment of my illustrated journals, made by me with my very own paws (and teeth)

As a taste of things to come here's a page from one of my sketchbooks (or illustrated journals - I never know what to call them).

self-portrait, relief print, ink and watercolour

You'll soon see that I do a lot of drawings or paintings of dogs, but I tackle other objects as well. I'm just trying to capture the essence of something I love or am affected by. Having a tangible representation (something on paper or canvas) of the object of my affection or interest allows me to re-visit my feelings for that object. It's a way of having that feeling available to visit any time I open up my journal or look at the painting. If I could keep all this in my mind's eye maybe I wouldn't need to do it on paper. But it's so much fun to draw and paint, I think I'm glad I don't trust my memory to retain all my experiences.

Well, now you know a little about me and what I'm up to. I hope you'll come back and visit and please leave a comment or send me an e-mail if you have something to say about anything I write or draw about.

Tchao-wow!
Ruca