Der Dackel Waldi Skull

Karen Kuttner is an Austrian painter of skulls who works with mixed media also. This piece is her favorite one titled "Der Dackel Waldi ist auch tot". She adds, "I hope you like my little dead dog!" Of course we would rather have a little live dog, but the way she has resurrected this dog and skull show is quite impressive. Thanks for sharing it, Karen!

Skull Guides

Paul Renault from Winnipeg, Canada, drew this piece titled "German Shepard".

This piece, instantly reminded me of the grim reaper and any guides in stories about going to the afterlife. Though I, like many people, have never seen an afterlife to prove there is one, if there was, I would like a guide of one of my past pets or loved people of my life. There is something comforting in the thought of having an afterlife place where passed on people from your life are there to great you. Weather is be true or not, I do enjoy the mythology.

Sabrina's Skulls

Sabrina is an illustrator and jewelry maker.

"For the metal skulls, I design it all my self and I have someone to make all the cast and everything."

"For the clay skulls, i molded and painted my self. The size are pretty tiny,around 1cm x 1.5cm."

"The paintings mostly I used pen and ink or graphite."

The variety of Sabrina's work is intriguing. Though she might not have cast the jewelry, you can clearly see by the last drawing, that the designs are hers. The small skulls with the snake share the same grim smile as the skulls in the jewelry. The clay skulls have a different hand made feel. The bright colors are very festive and evocative of Dia de los Muertos. The three drawings use animals in a beautiful way. The dog is interesting by it's self, but if you look closely, there is another faint skull image on the paper. The ghosting is probably from an image on the next page, but I like the eerie quality in addition to the happy skull dog.

Sabrina will be giving away one of her skull necklaces, in a contest here on Skull-A-Day. More information on how to win one, will come sometime this month.

336. (Beware of) Dog Fur Skull

Arranged Dog Fur (16in x 19in [41cm x 48cm]). Thanks to my friends Phil and Mady who surprised me, when we met up the other day, with a couple of bags of fur, sorted by color, shed by their dogs (yes I lead a strange life). Oddly enough Brandy had just suggested this material on the Skull-A-Day Facebook page a few days ago!

UPDATE: Here's a picture from Phil of his fur contributors (L to R) Dogma, Philosophy, and Midrash. He says, "By the way they are all rescued animals. Dogma and Philosophy came from the pound in Richmond and Midrash came with the house (her mom and her siblings were strays living in our crawl space.)"...

73. Watercolor Dog Skull

Watercolor on cold pressed 140lb paper (9" x 12"). I decided today was the right time for another foray into painting with watercolor. This one is based on the photo I took of my dog skull for the collection mosaic.