The song “Rain Dogs” by Tom Waits popped up on my iPod, and I thought I’d make a drawing of rain dogs.
This would be my first DrawMo drawing from imagination, rather than from my surroundings. I envisioned the dogs as like the Hounds of Hell from a comic strip whose name I can’t think of right now the Sylvia comic strip (unfortunately I can’t find any of the “Hounds of Hell” strips online to link for you). I pictured them blue and black, with big yellow teeth, and maybe not quite so scary.
But my initial sketch started heading in a different direction, and I wanted to draw something quickly so I could post. So I started anew and drew this, which is from a photo my brother Anthony took years back, of my other brother’s dog, Carmen.
Poor Carmen was a very sweet dog, a Golden Retriever. Not terribly smart. She had every health problem a Golden can have, especially skin troubles that caused her to scratch and chew herself until she bled, and that sometimes made her smell. But she was dear, and Jude loved her.
Anthony scanned the original color photo and made it monochrome, then printed it on photo paper. Somehow the printing process caused it to acquire a bluish tint, which is part of the appeal of this photo for me — and part of why I decided to copy it today.
NaNoWriMo update: I’m going to write right now. Seriously. UPDATE: OK, now I have 520 new words. More symbolic than anything, but each word counts toward the total. Onward.