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Sunday, June 27, 2010

Adventures of Steve the Dog - "I thought we were swimming... so where's the water?"



















I thought we were swimming... so where's the water?
ckim 
2010 | acrylic & ink on wood box | 5" X 5"
 
 
This is Steve's girlfriend Estella Rose, who loves to swim.  Stelli loves the water as much as Steve loves to run.  As a precaution she always wears a life jacket when she swims.  Stelli never wants to get out of the water, even if she is exhausted.  
 
She's resembles a seal in the water.

A little about Steve...

Steve is the happiest and most sweet natured dog I've ever met. He just wants to be your friend. Steve’s favorite thing in the whole world is to run and chase the ball.

Besides having similar hobbies as most dogs, he typically ignores other dogs and doesn’t seem interested in them at all. He prefers to be around humans more and is a bit of a loner. Maybe it’s because he’s an only child, or because he thinks he is human.

He's best friend is a stuffed little hedgehog that used to squeak. He usually destroys his toys, but he has never killed his hedgehog. If you ask him where his hedgehog is, he will go and retrieve it from where he left it last. He likes to carry it around, sleep with it and bury it. His other friend is Carl the Cat. He likes to chase Carl and likes for Carl to chase him back. Strange...
Until recently Steve didn’t seem interested in boys or girls, but that was before he met Estella (Stelli for short). Stelli is Steve’s girlfriend and partner in crime. The funny thing is, Stelli also thinks she is human and usually doesn’t pay attention to other dogs either. I wonder if that’s why the two of them get along so well or the havoc they cause together. 
My favorite parts on Steve are his two gigantic spots (one on either side of his body), Frankenstein head and the fur at the tip of his tail. Although he is not a good 'finder' dog and probably couldn't survive in the wild. He oddly has natural instincts to dig and bury his hedgehog. Well, actually he has never really dug in dirt before. He walks around our living room and pretends to bury the hedgehog, as he paws the air and pushes the hedgehog further in the 'dirt' with his nose.  




Photos starting from the top:
Steve somewhere near Maupin in Central Oregon \ Steve in his running shoes at the track\ Steve with his hedgehog friend \ Steve and Stelli on a hike at the beach \ My husband and Steve in the snow \


Friday, June 25, 2010

Adventures of Steve the Dog - "ohhh, were we going somewhere?"



















ohhh, were we going somewhere?
ckim
2010 | acrylic & ink on wood box | 5" X 5"

This is a painting of Steve when he was a puppy, just six months old. That is why his head looks too big for his body, whereas now his head is too small for his body, but it's probably because his ears are too big for his head.  My husband hates when I say this, but it's true. :)

My husband put the leash on Steve and stepped out of the room for thirty seconds to grab a baggie.   When he came back into the room, he found Steve sitting there with his leash shredded.  Steve apparently was looking up at my husband wagging his tail, looking excited for his walk.  My husband told him to sit and took a picture of him and the 'leash'.  Steve really had no clue what he did, but for some reason I thought he looked guilty in this photo, which inspired me to portray it that way in this paint. 

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Sketchbook Project 2011

I stumbled across this website by Art House Co-op the other day and on impulse joined The Sketchbook Project 2011.  I'm really excited that this will force me to consistently keep up with a sketchbook and hope my moleskin finds it's way too me.  (The website didn't have the city and state of where I'm living.... :/ )  So I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed that the post office will figure it out. 

"It's like a concert tour but with sketchbooks" is the description Art House Co-op uses. 

To summarize - you get a sketchbook provided by this project that you have to fill and mail back to them by January 15, 2011.  Then all the sketchbooks go on a tour across the United States.  Currently six cities are participating, but more may be added before the tour begins.  After the tour all the sketchbooks become a part of the permanent collection, of The Brooklyn Art Library, where the public can check out these sketchbooks.

                  Available for check-out at The Brooklyn Art Library.


                  Sorting through sketchbooks from the 2010 project.

Anyone in the world can participate, but there is a fee of $25 dollars.  The fee covers the cost of the sketchbook, but mainly it helps with the manpower it takes to organize the event, collate all the books and keep the website going.   

You can use any medium, add pages and alter the book to your hearts desire.  You just have to use their sketchbook, which has a barcode attached to track the books in the future.  Also, you must choose a theme from their list or have a theme randomly selected for you.  I like that you don't have to be an artist and many mothers are doing this with their kids.  I think it's such a great idea.  The deadline to enter is October 31, 2010.
             Examples of past sketchbooks from: http://shaunaleelange.com/

                 Sketch by. Oukrainskiy

I'm really looking forward to starting this project and think it will be fun and challenging.  The theme I chose is "Figuring you out".  Not sure yet how to interpret my theme or translate it into art, but I'll definitely post some sketches as I go. 


Check it out:
sketch book project

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Adventures of Steve the Dog - "Ouch"



















ouch
ckim
2010 | acrylic & ink on wood box | 5" X 5" 





Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Adventures of Steve the Dog - "I can still run... throw the ball."



















I can still run... throw the ball.
ckim
2010 | acrylic & ink on wood box | 5" X 5" 
 

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Adventures of Steve the Dog


















I've got my running shoes on, so where's the ball?
ckim
2010 | acrylic & ink on wood box | 5" X 5" 



















I've been painting a series of Steve and what his daily life is like.  This series was never something I intended to paint, and happily stumbled into it by accident.  

It all started because I wanted to paint a picture of Steve with a zipper on his belly for my husband.  I know this sounds weird, but my husband thinks that Steve is a little boy in a dog suit.  So for fun, I wanted to portray that in a painting.  

I started by looking at all the pictures I could find of Steve to study the way he looked, since I normally don't paint animals.  As I was doing a test drawing, I saw this series come to life in my head and how I could put it on my Etsy site.  These paintings will be for sale after I find a place in Korea that can scan the paintings, so that I can create a limited number of prints.  I'll add the link to my Etsy site as soon as I get these paintings scanned.  


I hope you all enjoy Steve's adventures as much as I do. 

c

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Myles


Kyle & Mai
5w x 5l x 2d inches

Myles / Mai, 
These were taken from our camping trip photos.  Let me know if you want me to change anything like your clothes or the color of the background.  I originally planned to put your house in the background, but am still contemplating it.  
Hope you guys like it. 



P.S. I can also add an outline of Steve the Dog too.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

A Belated Balimoon • The adventure continues...



At my husband's urging, we took a 40K bike tour through the countryside starting from a town called Kintamani, which is located at the top of a volcano (Gunung Batur), and weaving ourselves down through the small villages towards Ubud.  FYI – that’s 24 miles for you non-metric types … but mostly downhill. :)  The bike ride turned out to by one of my favorite experiences in Bali. 

Two other American couples, one couple living in Singapore and one couple living in Washington DC, joined our group.  They made for wonderfully fun company.  After we selected our bikes and tested the brakes (very important), one of the guys asked our guide, “What should we look out for as in, being dangerous?” And our guide said, “Just watch out for small children and dogs”.

I liked how the gigantic size craters in the road, uneven gravel and rifts in the asphalt weren't even mentioned as dangerous. Top that off with ‘roads’, that were 6 inches wide in some places with generously used brakes on a beater bike as you're speeding downhill and I think you might approach being dangerous. But curiously our guide thought the kids and dogs were the most dangerous part of the ride. Seriously, how can you not love Bali?
It’s crazy how fast we were going downhill.  We have some videos of our ride, since my husband thought it was a good idea to shoot videos one-handed while hurling downhill.  I guess by Balinese standards this was still within the realm of being safe. I know that safety is relative, especially in foreign countries.  Living in Korea has possibly desensitized my perception towards unsafe things. 

It’s crazy how unsafe a lot of things seem to be compared to the US.  Maybe I just notice more potential hazards because my previous job required me to deal with building codes and designing safe spaces for people. Or maybe it's because it really is crazy to have sharp low hanging metal awnings at eye level.  And that's just one example of things we encounter daily out on the streets in Korea.   More to come ...


Photos starting from the top:
gunung batur (mount batur) \ me & my husband \ view of my back (courtesy of my sweet husband) \   


Notes: