Inspiration & Title

I think this is a slightly unusual subject or composition for a photo manipulation. I saw the stock of the dog and really liked it, even though it’s hind legs are positioned sort of strangely (yeah, I tried to hide them with the tall grass). It instantly grabbed me and told me I had to do a piece with it. The first thing that came to mind was an antique, grungy frame behind her (yes it’s a female – I read the stock’s description) or her partially coming out of the frame with her front legs. I also knew I wanted it to be grungy and rough looking. It kind of ended up that way with a slightly celestial feel to it.

Since it felt “heavenly” it seemed that she might be guarding the gate to another galaxy. I tried putting a celestial type stock inside the mirror behind her but it looked wrong. So I left it the way it originally was.

The title was a hard one to come up with. I think I spent a good half hour trying to come up with it tonight and throughout the day (since I started the piece last night) it slipped in and out of my mind. As I was sitting here tonight I kept looking at the expression on her face. It seems so disconnected in a way, like there isn’t a real thought or emotion behind it; and then sometimes I saw a bit of sadness; and sometimes a bit of “what?”; or even “hmpf”. So it was tough to name the piece when I couldn’t decide what emotion she was conveying. I decided that she merely looked as if she was waiting and watching, doing her job guarding with no real indifference either way; just that this was her place and she was comfortable being there.

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Other Details

This took me approx 6 hrs to complete. Probably half an hour of that was coming up with the title!

Made using PaintShop 9. Shown at 50% of original size.

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Stock Provided by:

Dog [link]
Frame [link]
Brick tunnel passage [link]
Grass [link]
Texture [link]
Texture [link]
Texture [link]
Texture [link] (you can hardly tell b/c I inverted it to B&W and then used it to mask the outside edges roughly)