This week I sent brand new funny dog paintings to Leanna Lin’s Wonderland in Eagle Rock for the upcoming WonderPUP group art show.

“The Circle of Life” #’s 1-4, acrylic on wood by Hearts and Laserbeams

I would absolutely love if you’d consider making a home for these funny dog paintings; 100% of the art sales will be benefiting the ACVIM Foundation in honor of Leanna Lin’s toy poodle, Richy, who passed away last July. The pieces are 6″ x 6″ each, and are affordably priced at $50 each. (1 is great… but you’ll get maximum rear end-sniffing effect with multiple panels!)

If you’re an out of towner looking to purchase these pieces, you can give Leanna Lin’s shop a shout at hecko@leannalinswonderland.com.

And if you’re a southern California local? Mark your calendars, the show runs from March 10 through April 22, 2012. Leanna Lin’s Wonderland is located at 5024 Eagle Rock Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90041. We’ll for sure be at the opening reception on Saturday, March 10, and we hope to see you there! The reception starts at 6pm, and little boy’s not much of a night owl, so we’ll be there for the early part of the evening.

I’m expecting Phil to go nuts at this art show, since he is OBSESSED with dogs. Which means you should probably join us to take in maximum Phil cuteness!

(Click here to print a pdf of the show flyer)

It’s always fun to see pictures of work in progress, so I made sure to take lots of photos as I was painting these funny dog paintings. First up, I gesso’d the wood I was painting on, and pencilled in the dog shape I designed as a guide. Getting the dog shape right was a little tricky – it had to be something cute, but simple enough and the right dimensions to fill up the square nicely when you cut it in half. I ended up drawing about 20 dog shapes before settling on one, and then took that sketch into photoshop to reshape it a little so it fit my square format perfectly.

To transfer my drawing onto the wood, i turned over the paper with the dog shape on it, and rubbed a pencil all over the back. Then, I put the paper on each wood block (pencil rubbing side on the wood, sketch facing up) and traced the sketch. It essentially worked like carbon paper, making transferring the same exact dog to each piece a snap.

Did you note the paint in the background of that picture? The folks at Plaid were nice enough to pass along some of the brand new Martha Stewart craft paints to try out recently, so I used this art show as an opportunity to really put them to work! There’s literally gobs of colors to choose from, that all seem to just… go together. Which isn’t surprising. It’s Martha Stewart, people. And I like that there’s different finishes available, from semi-gloss and satin to high gloss, along with glittery paints and metallic options!

You’ll notice those dog sketches disappeared pretty quick when I started working on the backgrounds. Lots of times, when you’re creating something, it’ll start changing as you work on it. The original plan for this series was much bigger canvases, and each of the dogs would be filled with a different fun hand-painted pattern, and everything would be super graphic pop clean lines… But then time grew short, and smaller pieces were necessary. And the level of detail I wanted to do originally… would’ve been kind of a pain working this small. And as I started painting the backgrounds, I got looser and looser with it… and the sketches kind of went bye bye. I kept that original drawing right in front of me, though, as a guide.

I liked the consistency of the Martha Stewart paints – they’re a bit creamier than the paints I usually work with, and that took a little getting used to, but once you got the hang of that, everything else was golden. Nice bright color, and super easy to make these paints do what you want. Except if you want them to make you breakfast. Then you’ll probably have to go to Martha Stewart herself. And ask nicely.

The other nice thing about working with the sketch in front of you, instead of trying to rigidly fill in the drawing you painstakingly might put on your work surface? Your art turns out so much more vibrant and lively. These puppies are taking shape! The colored dots where there aren’t puppies yet are where I was planning out what color dogs were going where.

And here we are! Hands down the best thing about those Martha Stewart paints? The consistency of the paint makes detail work like these puppies faces a SNAP. For some reason, when I’ve got little lines and details I’m adding to a finished painting, I always end up going back and forth with my acrylic paints to try and get the liquid-ness juuuuust right for little lines. This Martha Stewart paint was already the perfect consistency from the get go. It rocked my socks off!

Here’s a little close up of all four funny dog paintings for the show – we’d love a little Pinterest love if you’d love to share them!

“The Circle of Life #1”, acrylic on wood by Hearts and Laserbeams

“The Circle of Life #2”, acrylic on wood by Hearts and Laserbeams

“The Circle of Life #3”, acrylic on wood by Hearts and Laserbeams

“The Circle of Life #4”, acrylic on wood by Hearts and Laserbeams

You’re still here! How exciting – let’s have a giveaway to celebrate! Plaid sent along a Martha Stewart spray paint kit that I’m giving away to one lucky blog reader. Feast your eyes:

(photo by Plaid – sorry folks, forgot to snap a pic of this when I had my camera out!)

Entering to win the spray paint kit takes just 3 easy steps:

1) Like Hearts and Laserbeams on Facebook. (Do you already like us on Facebook? Then you’re 1 step ahead of the game!)

2) Visit the WonderPup event page on Facebook and RSVP – let us know if you’re going to the opening night reception on March 10 or not!

3) Leave a comment about anything on this blog post –  what would you do with the spray paint kit? What do you think about these new dog pieces? Where do babies come from?

Here’s the legal mumbo jumbo. Contest entries will be accepted from 2/24/12 through midnight on 3/2/11. You must complete all three parts of this contest to be eligible to win. This contest is open to residents of the continental US only. Sorry, postage is ridiculously expensive. If I email you that you’ve won and I don’t hear back within 5 business days, I will pick another winner. You should make sure heartsandlaserbeams@gmail.com is on your email contacts list to be on the safe side! All winners are picked by www.random.org. Prize has been provided by Plaid Enterprises. That’s pretty much it. Good luck!