stephaniedraws

This is a work in progress of Lucca, the dog I take care of at the animal shelter I volunteer at. And yes, his eyes DO look like that with the split and broken pupils, and he isn't blind at all! Though his field of vision isn't the same as a normal eyed dogs, either.



I'm happy with Lucca's profile and fur, there's just a little detail to be added at the muzzle and nose until it's done. But I am grappling with the background which looks either too real (drawing away attention from the actual subject) or too simplistic....



Unfortunately by now Lucca's been at the shelter for nearly 3 years. I really wish I didn't have to work fulltime so I could take him!
He's deaf due to the merle gen you see in his fur colour so he paid a price for his frequently remarked on beauty. Highly intelligent, athletic, very charming but unfortunately only a dog for very experienced owners due to his disability, stubbornness, strength, dislike of some males and lack of fright when challenged or feeling threatened. So he's likely to stay on without a home and being part of a family....

Lucca was initially branded as a mix of Dobermann and Australian Shepard (which is not unreasonable given his profile and colouring respectively) but I didn't think that fit exactly. I managed to track down the breed I vaguely remembered and he fits it perfectly: textbook case from white, bent tip of tail to broken glass eyes as well as character. I managed to convince the shelter directors too that he'd been mislabelled.
Lucca is a Catahoula Leopard Dog, the official dog of Louisiana, a hunting breed virtually nonexistent and unknown even among professionals here in Germany. However since his previous owners in Berlin who'd given him away turned out to have been Americans, it explained how Lucca with his incredibly rare breed still ended up here.

For the mods, authors, artists and commenters on sshg_exchange for being awesome and entertaining lots of people for months

Title: Thank gods, it's over! (Up and away)
Artist: stephanie_draws
Rating: G
Warnings: HGSS in a US-location? (don't worry, they're not Americans) Robes not movie-inspired?
Summary: After they dealt with the insane number of requests they had to re-enact during the SSHG-exchange Severus and Hermione felt they deserved a vacation. Somewhere with no Potters, Weasleys, Malfoys, annoying portraits or people at all, preferably. Though Hermione insisted on taking the SSHG-paperwork with her for later perusal and putting together a few statistics when Severus grabbed her to apparate. Severus will distract her though...



( Picture here )

First abstract landscape at all and first landscape in pastel. It worked surprisingly well. The sky's colours are a little more subtle in the original, softer. But velour paper is a bitch to photograph, unfortunately, so this is the best I came up with. I'm going to try an LJ-cut and a bigger image behind cut next.