Studio Pets

It is my humble belief that animals bring joy into your life. OK, so when the dog pees on your carpet, the joy can go right out the window. But most of the time, it's nice to have that four legged furry companion. Some artists have dogs, some have a cat, others have the interesting household with both, some even have something more exotic, like a reptile or bird.

My little furry bundle of joy, Troy, passed away this past February. He was a 16 year Min Pin. His body was slowly shutting down. My husband took him over to the vet and they proclaimed that he was slowly dying of old age. I couldn't go to be him when they put him down and that hurt. I couldn't even take care of him his last two months because of my injury. Poor Troy. I broke my ankle slipping on ice, going out to bring little his little geriatric butt in the house. (I did this Troy sketch many years ago.)I'd love to have another dog but it's hard to replace a best friend. Troy was a big dog in a small package.

As I mentioned briefly before, for my birthday, I got a Betta fish. It's not Troy, but he's pretty cool and he won't pee on the carpet or lay in a basket of clean laundry. He's PINK and an iridescent purple and boy can he put away those Betta pellets. People don't give fish and parakeets much credit, but both are pretty smart in some way. I have heard of Koi that will allow their humans to pet them and I had a parakeet that was more loving than some people I know. This Betta knows me already after a month. He seems very friendly and happy, I couldn't think of anything more original to name him than Fishy, but he doesn't seem to mind.

So here's a sketch of Fishy the Studio pet.

Fishy also has company now across the room. I found another Betta tank that I didn't realize I still had. I sterilized it, went out and picked up another Betta. He's not as sociable as Fishy, and he's some sort of fancier variety with frilly fins, he's purple and red. His name is Pisces. I will sketch him and attach his sketch another time. He likes the pellets, too.