Life Savers, Each and Every One

In keeping with my last entry, I wanted to post a photograph of my latest poster - aimed at the greyhound community, but more so, toward honoring fosters. Across the country, many retired greyhounds spend time with caretakers trained to help them transition from their prior lives (as racing animals) to their future, as family pets and companions. These caretakers, "fosters", are invaluable in the adoption community - they ensure the successful adjustment of these wonderful dogs, helping them to understand aspects of life such as house rules, climbing stairs, avoiding glass doors - many of these things are completely alien to greyhounds just off the track. Fosters give them the gift of a future... a new life.

This poster is one that I'd been wanting to work up for some time - I appreciated the idea of fosters truly being "life savers", and as such, I pursued a nautical theme. The life ring itself was a given - what I hadn't planned on was the metallic lettering, and wooden scroll. But the more I thought of the incredible carvings I'd seen in maritime museums along the east coast, the less I could resist incorporating that element. The gold lettering falls into that vein as well - the 16th-century galleons featured vast amounts of skillfully-applied gold leaf. In short, this was a great deal of fun to create. Some detail photos - the last of which was taken up close, and at an angle, to show the textures of the pencil and inks.





I hope to have this poster run into a series of prints very soon - along with my other work now on Etsy, I think it could do a lot of good in raising further funds for the Greyhound Adoption League of Texas, as well as other groups down the line.



And if you're wondering, the two dogs are Desiree, my late fawn girl, and Martin, a very special brindle boy from the Fort Worth seizure, mentioned in the last post. Their fosters, Lynne and Holly, are both wonderful people, tireless in their efforts to help animals adjust to a happy future. This one goes out to both of them.