The Christmas Puppies

CHRISTMAS PUPPIES NO. 3, 2012

You can blame these 'reindogs' if your gifts are a little late, or even lost, this year.  They look a bit confused.

This is the third installment in what I had hoped would be an annual Christmas Puppy series.  That's been impossible the last few years as I became busier with holiday orders. But for 2012, my dogs Bella and Corly locked horns and got lit up.  Just like people!

The pups in progress

Unlike my other works, I can't display the Christmas Puppy pictures year-round and they do take up space -- but people seem to get a kick out of them, and they are fun to do.  I worked this one in between doing holiday orders for customers, friends and families.  

Here are the other Christmas Puppy illustrations, and the "true" story behind them.

I made up a story, when my girls were little, called "The Christmas Puppy."  It had to do with a chocolate labrador retriever being the one who really made sure good kids got pets for presents.

CHRISTMAS PUPPIES 2011

Also, it's the Christmas Puppy who eats the cookies and drinks the milk, not Santa. Santa handles the toys. CP brings the dogs, ducks, hamsters, snakes and birds. He rides in a doghouse (as opposed to Snoopy, who rides ON a dog house).
There is no such thing as a Christmas Kitty.  If you got a cat for Christmas, you were bad. BAD.
Where do cats come from? Same letters as SANTA, rearranged.
Now you know.

It helped that we had such a brown dog at the time, named Hank, and that my kids were gullible and believed every word I said.
Those were the days.
I still call my dogs "Christmas Puppies" at Christmastime.
Corleone, the grinning Shepherd in the 2011 version of the Pups, was born Dec. 18, 2009, so he's a CP for real.
For. Real.

The above hallucination is based loosely on the Warner Brothers Looney Toons logo. Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny are replaced here by Corly and Bella. The rainbow rings are pine boughs.
This is the second Christmas Puppy picture, the first one being done in 2010, with Santa hats.   I eliminated from later drawings my BAD pet cats, Waylon (now deceased) and Weez.

CHRISTMAS PUPPIES 2010

Now that my girls are grown, they think the CP story, and hence the CP drawings, are ridiculous.  I think that has less to do with the actual productions than the fact that they see and smell the real Bella and Corly every day. They're not so special to them anymore -- although each daughter is directly responsible for bringing each dog into the house.
(As well as the cats.)

But I get a lot out of these canine clowns. And I draw them a lot.  Just scroll through Tom Wills Productions and see. They are everywhere, like dog hair.

ACTUAL CHRISTMAS PUPPIES

Everyone needs to lighten up around the holidays, myself included.  Believe in what you want.
If you want to tell your little kids that pets at Christmas come from a big Chocolate lab, go right ahead.
Believe.

No. 177: Five Dogs

FIVE DOGS By Tom Wills, November 2012. 3' x 4'

The more faces in the frame, the tougher the drawing.
Also, the bigger.

Love, Love, Love, Love and Love

In this case, I took five photos, and tried to scale the dogs to proper proportion: Two big and three small.
The guy who ordered this for Christmas moved in with a woman who has five dogs.
Talk about real love.

Added the nametags. Almost finished.

Most of the people I know, if they have pets, have more than one. Really, if you have one, two is no great stretch.
Five is a lifestyle.
I have four: Two dogs, two cats.
Women seem to have more dogs and cats than men. I think that they have more patience and are more caring; perhaps they are able to give love more easily.
The other theory is that they just need more things to yell at.

I decided to add more of their bodies to fill out the illustration.

I'm very happy with this drawing, because it posed many challenges.
Three of the photos were good, two were fuzzy.

The five photos.

I worked off and on through the birth of my grandson and took an intermission to draw him.
This drawing is a huge thing, and I hope  the lovebirds have a big wall for it.  I had to make the frame out of two frames -- one had the wood, the other had the glass.

Five faces have taken shape.

I don't know the names of these dogs, so I made up five while I drew:
Love, Love, Love, Love and Love.

I worked all five at once, going light to dark.

Who do you love?
I'll draw them for you.
Contact me at hankbonesman@embarqmail.com or willstom01@gmail.com

No. 176: Small Stuff

ANTHONY THOMAS ARMISTEAD 

Here's a quick one of Anthony Thomas, my first grandchild, on his fourth day breathing air.
He's gonna be at Thanksgiving dinner, even though his first holiday was supposed to be Christmas.
The name on his little (5.5 lbs, 18.5 inches) self said "Wills" for the first three days. It became "Armistead" as soon as his dad Keith inked the birth certificate on Friday.

Anthony's premature arrival was anything but quick and easy.
My first-born daughter Kara went to the hospital (for the third or fourth time) at about 4 p.m. on Election Day 2012, Nov. 6.  He had tried three previous escape attempts but when it got down to it, he stayed put. Anthony was delivered by emergency caesarean section one day into Barack Obama's second term,  2:54 p.m. Nov. 7.
Mom and baby could take no more.
Twelve minutes and it was over.

 

That sure was a long stretch of hours. I was working the election overnight in The Vindicator's newsroom and the only news I cared about was the baby.
A lot of the next sleepy day is a blur, spent balled up in a hard hospital chair with a hoodie over my face.
I had to make a fast U-turn 85 mph down Ohio Route 11 back to the hospital after going home to let out the dogs, but I was there when a nurse came into the hallway and proclaimed, "Baby's out!" and gave a quick thumbs-up.
We were relieved when we saw his moving, pink self being rushed down the hallway in a little plastic cart. I heard him wail.

Wide-eyed at the world

His arrival met a politically divided nation, an attack by Iran on a U.S. drone "minding its own business," Honey Boo-Boo, zombies on television and Mayan predictions about our demise.
Heavy agendas, and I am a worrier. Loved ones and friends will tell you that I irritate them, and cause myself undue stress.
But I think Anthony will be good for me, helping me to let go of the things that I can't control -- and to accept things as they are.
What happens, is.

Pop the cap.

Babies, it turns out, are tough to draw. There's just not much there yet.
He will quickly change, I am sure, as he soaks in life.
Anthony will absorb a lot as he grows.
I'll play him music, read to him, let him splash paint on tables and walls, break crayons and grind them into the floor, get muddy, play with frogs and fish, watch trains and planes.

He'll have a dog, no question about that. It'll be good for his soul and payback for all of the creatures Kara has brought home to me.
We'll be into trouble and out again. Sometimes we won't tell anyone. My grandfather and I were like that, a lot.
Wrinkles and stains are no big deal.

The Trouble Boys

Miracles happen. I believe they will keep happening for Anthony.
He's a blessing.
Everything else is small potatoes.

There, there.

"See, this is the big change: You three are a unit now, a family, a team. I went to work today because of that. 'They're big people, adults. This is their thing to figure out and handle.' We can all help. But really it's the three of you now against the world. That's how it goes and it eventually clicks. Write that down."