Daphne Update

Today was a stellar day in a number of respects. One of the best things that happened was that I sat down to work on Daphne and did her eyes, and they turned out really well. I remembered a lot of the things I have read about doing eyes and implemented them in the drawing. That was tricky because her eyes in the photograph have that green glow that many animal eyes get with a flash and did not look like her eyes really look, so I had to do some creative reformatting and make them look as real as possible. I feel that worked out really well--when I look at the eyes in the drawing, they look familiar and right. I also worked on the fur on her muzzle for awhile. I'm beginning to feel like I am actually going to be able to do a good job on this drawing. Considering my hesitation about attempting a realistic drawing, that is certainly a good thing. I think today's work session was a turning point.

In other news, I have been making dog toys with my new sewing machine and that is going well too. Our dogs love the ones I have made so far (in fact, Sharky is trying to destroy the one I made for her right now, which she does to all her toys, so we will see if it is as well made as I intended). I sewed it out of thick denim with triple seams. I used a squeaker from one of the many toys Sharky has shredded. I made another one for Daphne today. I am going to have several households do product testing for me and probably make some to sell if my design is a shred-proof as I hope. They are quick and simple to sew, and the two I have made so far are a big hit with the dogs.