I haven't made an entry is SSsssooooooo Looooooong!

If you notice, my graphics went Poof.

This is because my host kind of wants payment, and I don't have a gold or supergold account to host them for me. If I had that, it would be easier.

If you use the 'give bboa a gift' feature to buy me one year's gold or supergold membership, I will send you:

1) Big Bertha origional painting, 8x10, framed.

2) TWO Big Bertha origional paintings, 5x7, framed.

3) A picture of me and my peoples, someplace in the city I live in (Seattle) near something all scenic and stuff.

I will also pimp your blog or website till I turn purple. yep. purple. (or untill my account runs out again... whichever comes first. Yep. Big Bertha is sellin' her pixel space to a clickable ad for your blog or webspace!)

Come on... you KNOW you want it.

You can have a painting by me, AND two to give to friends!

Or you can put them side by side, and have a nice trio effect. (see what an accomplished artist I am?)

If you don't already know, I paint these all by myself! I'm pretty proud of this, even though Dad thinks it's kind of funny how I get all serious about it:

First, he sets out my paints on the little table. He says "pick a color!!" and I bring him one. or two. or three. (he tries to get me to pick three, but I am VERY independant. I look carefully, and I DECIDE which ones I want. you have to cope if I want only two, or if I want four instead of the more usual three.)

Second, dad pours a little paint into each palette, in the order I picked them. First picked colour comes first- he dabbles a 'sponge' paintbrush into it, and holds it out to me, handle-first.

Then I take the brush in my mowf, and while he holds the canvas out for me, I VERY carefully rub the painty-sponge tip onto the board.

Sometimes I am VERY deliberate, and I make all sorts of differtent shapes and textures. Sometimes I drop the brush, and poke my nose at him to give me the next colour, and sometimes I hand him the brush again and watch the paint-puddle so he knows to put more paint on, I am not done with that colour yet!

When I am done, I often walk away. (the artist has LEFT the building!) ...sometimes though, I will stare at my painting, and ignore everything else. (I am critiquing, doncha know!) I sometimes make some little growly talky noises, as if I am complaining- Dad says maybe I don't always like the results of my work, but he doesn't know for SURE what goes on in my doggy brain.

What he DOES know for sure, is that I LOVE my painting time!!

I don't need any treats or praise to do it, I just love doing it for the sake of asserting my own tastes.

Each painting comes with an explaination- Dad writes down what kinds of things have happened in my life just before I did each painting session (I do one to three paintings at a time, depending on if I am in the Mooooood to paint a lot or a little!) and what kinds of colours or images he sees in the work.

Some things seem to be consistant... Dad is only guessing at their meaning, but here are some examples:

When I visit the dog park, I often paint little brown marks that look VERY much like I am drawing the tree-chips/bark ground cover at the park... and then things on top of it that might be people or animals or things.

I tend to use green in little short streaks that look a lot like figures- like stick people, almost. I have even drawn them on either side of a brown "T" shape, which looks suspiciously like two people at a booth in a restraunt!

I often draw a single streak or shorter figure (almost a V) in bright red in my pictures... especially after being to the dog park or a new place like an amusement park- Dad thinks I use this to represent myself... I have drawn this same 'figure' and use this same colour very very consistantly.

Sometimes I draw little green splats sitting on top of things. I always draw two or three when I do this. Dad notes, we have two smaller sized cats and a bigger cat that we added to the family after I came here... he thinks I may be drawing the cats on top of furniture where they love to sit most!

I once drew a very strange series of yellow stripes and slashes, on top of a 'ground' of little wood chips... the next day, Dad took me to the dog park, and he realized the sculpture that sits outside the gate looked JUST like that!!

I promise if I can get a paid membership here, I will post that painting, and a picture of the sculpture at the park! Then YOU can decide!!

I will also post my infamous 'futon' painting- I painted a BIG rectangle in a very strange light blue. I put two big stick-figures on it, and three little splats on it- I don't ever concentrate so hard on /coivering/ a lot of the canvas, and later, dad realized that i had chosen the exact colour of the futon couch's cover!! I had also placed what looked like two people and three cats, with one in 'motion' just where everyone loves to sit the most often!! Dad calls it my 'futon painting' and I call it my /family/ portrait... I didn't include myself- I chose red, but then I decided at the last minute I did not want to use red. Dad doesn't know why, since I NEVER do that... but I know why.

I'm the painter, that's why!!

Big Bertha