painted diary

Daily painting: R’lyeh

| Aafke-Art

In R’lyeh, where dead Cthulhu dreams

Oil on Panel, 6” x 6”

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Have you read H P Lovecraft? I like his stories. Many are about ”the old ones”, creatures from other worlds, from the stars, the Yog-Shoggoths and Cthulhu. He’s always very coy about describing the creepy. It’s always ”the un-namable” ”the un-describable horror” and I think a horror story is always the better for a bit of reticence.
He also likes the word ”eldritch” a lot.

The ancient city of R’lyeh lies somewhere under the sea near Antarctica. It is constructed of strangely worked stones build in ”strange angles”. And somewhere below that city dead Cthulhu sleeps, and when he wakes up we are all pretty much doomed.
The first time the city of R’lyeh was mentioned was in ”The Call of Cthulhu”.

Antar at his first flyball competition

| Aafke-Art

I can’t believe I didn’t post this at the time! fact is, Antar’s his first official flyball competition was a great success! We had a wonderful time, lots of fun, and Antar did really well! Of course that is to be expected from a Fekete Kutya, but en verité, I am still all excited and rosy when I remember. Everything was good, we camped out. Antar had fun racing. nice friends, our team is the best, but we had a lot of fun in the evening with the other team’s members who also are the best!
Of course lots of amazing dogs besides Antar!

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Antar has to get his paws wrapped. It looks funny, you usually do that on a horse, but why on a dog?
As you can see on the drawing,this is the wrapping after a race:
that black dot is where the small pad  gets rubbed on the mats, and if he didn’t wear the wraps they would have been bloody! That’s what happens if a Fekete Kutya goes flat out!

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A couple of people were going to stay in tents, so I brought my super mini trekking tent. The Eureka Moonshadow.
It was Antar’s first time sleeping in a tent. Which meant that we didn’t sleep a lot. There was also a massive thunderstorm. It was expected, so we all set up underneath a large open barn, which turned out pretty good.

Here you see my mattress, me and Antar…   And how that works out in the real world….

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Memo to self: need a larger tent and mattress…..

The second day Antar got to race in the team! He got even more excited in the team! It’s more complicated though. Luckily coach was right next to us to keep and eye on us and tell me what to do when. Antar did great.
Except for the Fekete Kutya victory lap at the end of the last race, but he had passed the finish line so the race was officially over so it didn’t matter.
Except for me looking like a bad dog trainer.
Not everybody understands the challenges of training a Fekete Kutya.

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Tarq’s accident

| Aafke-Art

Two weeks ago I got a phone call, Tarq hurt his tongue, I should come over, the vet was coming too.
It was total horror! His tongue was torn out of his mouth! It was lying in the next (empty) stable.

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It looked even worse inside his mouth…
The vet gave us ”Bute” medicine and painkiller, and antibiotics, and we had to make soups for him to eat. Making sure he would not get a massive infection was the first priority. If we could avoid an infection he would probably be alright the vet said. He would have to learn how to eat again. After eating we would have to rinse his mouth to get all food matter off the ragged remains of his tongue.
Tarq could not eat that evening. probably too much pain. He was also very cold so I borrowed a blanket for him.
I could not sleep at night.

Two days later I took him for a walk and he wanted to eat grass. Grass is soft so I thought I’d let him try. He dropped some bites but he managed somehow to get some up and chew it. The Tarq was enjoying himself very much.
So the next morning I took him out to graze again, he was very feisty! So I took him into the arena to loose some steam.
He went nuts!

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This was amazing, I felt a lot better because Tarq was just having fun and seemed unfazed.
And very keen on his dinner!
He was in a rather, ehm, opulent condition, so he had some calories to spare. We fed him sebior pellets, they dissolve very easily in water, and are very nourishing so he would get enough nutrients. Which he did. I think he didn’t loose a pound of fat during the whole disaster.
If anything he got fatter!
I still slept badly at night.

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When the vet came for a check-up, we saw that his tongue looked very good; all pink and healthy and no sign of infection! Just to be sure I got some antibiotic injections to give to the Tarq because he didn’t like taking the powders, and he knew they were in whatever wonderful tasty stuff we gave him. even the special treat mixes which Tara gave me. He was very interested in the mixes, but as soon as the powders were added he turned his nose up!

So the Tarq is doing very well, and here is my Daily Painting to prove it!

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Oh, I haven’t been talking about my new Daily Painting project have I?

Well, next time!

Artist at work

| Aafke-Art

I am still not finished with my Pasadena works. But it is always so busy as soon as you come home, with work waiting, mountains of post to go through, problems to be solved and heavy metal festivals to go to… (Yes, did some sketches and they will be posted!)

Anyway, I loved the Huntington Botanical gardens and especially the Chinese Garden! This is a proper Chinese Garden, with a balance between Ying and Yang observed in all details.

I painted the lotus flowers there, here you can see them in the background while I am making a water color sketch.

Count Moritzo needs a snack

| Aafke-Art

This was sóóóó funny!
Due to the drought there isn’t that much grass in the meadow. Not that you would notice it by the Tarq’s condition which is extremely good, as per usual. (if not positively American Tourist size). But here was count Moritzo, defenitely in need for a snack, and who to our surprise turned out to be the most gymnastic, most circus-level athletic athlete in the herd.
Count Moritzo wanted the unreachable grass on the other side of the electric fence. So right in front of our eyes he stuck his right front foot out, sank down on his left knee, twisted his head and neck, and started eating away!

And this must be a long practiced habit because ever so easily he stood up, walked two steps and did it again!
I had to paint this!
Even if I had to leave my commission to work on it! (Don’t tell anyone!)

It’s a bigger canvas too: 27.6 by 27.6 inches

Count Moritzo needs a snack
Oil on canvas
27.6” x27.6”