Eddie

Eddie is the cutest black scribble of a dog that you ever could meet. So when Sue asked me to make panel for Sal, (her sister and my oldest bestest pal), well……

Eddie is a will o’ the wisp ….he’s a black floppy flash ….he’s cocky and cute and crazy…..…….and he can’t fail to raise a smile. So it was clear to me from the start; the only way to capture the essence of Eddie would be in cartoon strip.

With National Poetry day upon us I set Sue the challenge of writing a wee poem which I could then illustrate. (I’d have had a go myself but what I’ve failed to mentioned so far is that Eddie is also the randiest little dog that I ever did meet (see post ‘When Pepper met Eddie, August 2014….stomach muscles still protest now!!) And so, bearing in mind the image that springs to my mind when I think of Eddie – then my poem would have been x-rated!)

So with images lifted from Sal’s facebook page and a copy of ‘Hairy Maclairy’ I set to. Sue’s poem was edited to 6 lines. (She had got quite carried away and I had to remind her this wasn’t a Cathedral window we were creating!!) And I drew up the draft; a simple 3-piece panel with painted detail.

I hoped to achieve it all in one firing so my layers had to be carefully worked out. The trickiest thing about the layers is making sure you don’t destroy what you have laid down before…but I planned well (good girl scout) and it all worked out, phew!

My sisters had a sneaky squint at it them when they visited and Heidi suggested the addition of Eddie’ name to be included so I tweaked a bit and ‘Eddie’ was added. (Heidi would like to take full credit for this important detail, which she thinks, would be very important to Sal!)

Once fired and with the pieces perched in my window I also made the decision to keep the three panels separate so that Sal could dot them around or assemble as she wished. To me they seemed to work well as individual panels and Sal, like me, likes stuff dotted about.