Summer

by Miss Darcy
June 21, 2023
A Dog's Lifestyle Blog, Dog Art

Today marks the first day of Summer – the longest day of the year. And as the season change, we too change the “Walking Through the Year” series picture that hangs above Mum’s desk.

This one which we call SUMMER was the beginning of the notecard series that Mum had created with Alice of DogsDogsCatsDogs during the first Lockdown.

Mum had been wanting to get personalised note cards made when it occurred to her that Alice of DogsDogsCatsDogs could help to manifest her vision! After Mum told her that she wanted something that depicted her with us in the neighbourhood, the fun part began.

As dog walking was an essential activity during Lockdown, whenever we were out walking along the deserted streets, we were checking out railings and window boxes that spelled Chelsea. Then Mum chose her favourite dress and shoes and the leads and collars that we were using then.

We were beyond delighted when Alice showed us the final art work!

And Mum decided that would should translate that into our card for Christmas 2020!

This was a brick house nearby. We have always loved their black framed windows and flower boxes so we had Alice recreate it for us with Christmas stars in the window. We chose our Moncler gilets and red and green Hindquarters leads for the festive season.

And Mum thought – we should do one for every season!!! It think she rather liked the idea of picking out clothes and shoes for each season!

So along came SPRING:

Every Spring, wisteria blossoms fill the front of our house with the purple door. And in England, we are always prepared for showers so we donned our matching yellow rain jackets. And that’s also one of Mum’s favourite Spring floral dresses.

And followed suite by AUTUMN:

Fallen leaves and we recreated a red brick wall into white with a dramatic twisted branch. This time Darcy and I were wearing our Darcy & George collections – a waxed jacket for Darcy and a quilted jacket for me. Mum in her Barbour and wellies – not that it’s necessary in the city but for the look! 🙂

Alas, the Christmas themed card did not translate into the months of Jan – early March, so surely we had to do WINTER:

It’s our purple door again. This time the bare branches of the wisteria plant, Mum in her pouffy coat and winter boots – with hopeful snowflakes. We were wearing our Overglam jumpers

Do you have a favourite?

May’s comment: This series of notecards was created during lockdown. With a whole lot of time to think and never having found any notecards that I liked, I asked Alice if she could help me visualise us walking together. I wanted something that reflected our neighbourhood, and of course to feature my two doggies. And that was how we decided it was going to be us walking about around the neighbourhood. Alice has an architectural background. So besides painting and drawing dogs and cats her next love was drawing buildings – so this suited her well.

I loved the first notecard, Summer, so much I had Alice work on a version for our Christmas card, which also included one of Darcy and George in Santa’s sleigh.

After Christmas and in our second Lockdown, we worked on one for each season! We loved them! And so did others! LOL! So there are other versions of walkies since then.

Alice has done quite a few commissions for us. These watercolour illustrations all with a sense of humour and fun.

Valentine’s Day

A couple of Teenies –

And a special one – a postcard sent from Heaven.

Alice of @DogsDogsCatsDogs is available to take commissions for portraits and illustration work of all mediums and sizes. Check out her website for range of work. She loves to hear ideas and thoughts!