‘Lily’ aged 15 weeks during the photo shoot for ‘The Red Horse and the Wolf Cub’, 2007

For all those who requested to see the photo-shoot of Lily for the drawing ‘Red Horse and the Wolf Cub’ – here it is in brief!!

Lily on location relaxing during the shoot!

Lily’s first bed was a red velvet affair with gaudy gold tassels – we called it her ‘Princess Bed’ as it reminded us of the fairy tale ‘The Princess and the Pea’ (for all us children of the 70’s, remember the Ladybird edition of the tale and those fabulous illustrations?).

Lily is given Pengy as a gift for her hard work modelling.

She loved her wee bed!  Sadly it went the same way as the demise of ‘Pengy’, reduced to a small rag of red velvet!  Pengy was latterly known as ‘Pengy’s Foot’ when Lily realised she had teeth and would use them!  Sid from Toy Story would have been be proud of her.

“I have teeth woo hoo!”

“I’m getting bored and sleepy now!”

Pengy’s foot resides somewhere in the dark recesses of Lily’s toy box!  Yes Lily has a toy box – for all you cynics out there who can be heard saying ‘typical childless person treating her dog like a baby!’ dogs are intelligent enough to differentiate between their toys and Lily knows each of her many (hence the need for a toy box!) toys by name and can often be found rooting around in her toy box looking for the particular mutilated creature she wants to play with at 5 o’clock sparrow am.  I always see play as an important part of Lily’s daily routine as it keeps her young at heart.  And can she play!

“Shh, Lily’s asleep!”

On a serious note many people, whether they have children or don’t have children, sadly or contentedly, or are dog or animal lovers, experience a strength of love for their dog that equates to the love of a family member because dogs are intelligent, pack animals with similar character traits to humans and therefore respond positively to love and affection.

Me and Lily, 2007

And what the hell if there are many of us out there who love our dogs like children – they are after all as innocent and reliant upon us, in my opinion as a child is and to give dogs a happy, loving home is surely what they deserve after the legacy we have created through domesticating canines.  Should we not celebrate and promote positively that many of our species share an empathy with and a love for animals? Such empathy defines a nation as a compassionate modern society and a nation of animal lovers is something to be proud of.

Lily and me, 2007

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated“   Gandhi

‘Red Horse and the Wolf Cub – After Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone’, 2009, red and black Biro drawing by Jane Lee McCracken

And this is the result of the photo shoot, Lily as the ‘Wolf Cub’.

Limited Edition Luxurious Archival Pigment Prints of the ‘Red Horse and the Wolf Cub’ crafted by one of the best printmaker’s in the UK Jack Lowe Studio are available from my website