Winner Takes All game: Dogs

This month's WTA (Winner Takes All) game features Dogs.  I love dogs and often doodle comic strips about them in my journals.  A few years ago, I was doodling Dogs into famous art works, like Michaelangelo's "Creation of Man," Leonardo DaVinci's "Vitruvian Man," and a few others.  Then we went over to the local school and used chalk to put them all over their sidewalks.  It was a lot of fun, but I'd never done one of those as an ATC until this game.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out!

I chose to do a spoof on "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer.  This is a picture of the original:

It's striking and the way the girl is looking at you evokes some pretty strong feelings, don't you think?  The colors are pure and you can almost feel the fabric.  I think it's the contrast between the humble everyday servant clothes and the pearl, however, that made this painting as famous as it is.

Here's my  version of it, "Poodle with the Pearl Earring":

I used oil pastels, water colors, sparkly water colors, and micron pen (just for the eye details) to get it done. Where it's certainly not to the standard of the original, I am most pleased with how it turned out.  I wish you could see it in person, as the scan just doesn't do it justice.  The "pearls" on my Poodle are built up water color, so they're 3D and that makes them really stand out.  So, it's not a lifelike Poodle or anything, but it does sort of evoke the same feeling as the original.  I probably should have added more shading to her back, but it's difficult to know where to stop that with fur!

I was going to make this with a black poodle, but decided that probably wouldn't work so well with such a dark background.  It would have to be named something more like "Floating Pearl Earring," then.  Hahaha!