My Labours of Love


Since I took to drawing animals, I have had the opportunity to look at some really beautiful creatures and hopefully I'll get around to working on some drawings and paintings of them all. In the past year or so, however, I have had the pleasure of working on two real labours of love.

My daughter, Caoimhe, has the cutest Chihuahua called Brogai. Now I should explain that 'brogai' is the Irish word for shoes. So why did she name her dog 'shoes'? Because when he arrived he was small enough to sleep in her shoes, which he did for the first few weeks. He soon grew out of them. Actually, Brogai is a standard Chihuahua, not the handbag kind and is a lot bigger than maybe you'd expect a Chihuahua to be and he has a big personality with a lot of attitude.

Here is my drawing of Brogai in his combat jacket. I used coloured pencils on watercolour paper. This work is now hanging in Caoimhe's living room.

My other great labour of love was a drawing of my brother, Colum's dog, Stevie.  Stevie is a Flatcoated Retriever and typical of the breed, he is a wonderfully intelligent working dog. He is strong and brave when working but when he is off-duty, he is an absolute messer - great fun!

This drawing is graphite on smooth Bristol Board. It was a birthday gift to Colum and I think he likes it because he hung it on his sitting room wall.

I have added both of these drawings to my Animals page. Feel free to browse through the works and please let me know what you think.