After completing the large painting of the old dog titled “Rexi Skipping Up To Heaven”, Rexi’s ‘Mom’ was so thrilled she insisted that I paint her young dog too. She said her name is Molly and “she has two kitties!” Indeed the two kitties loved to cuddle with loveable Molly.

In this design I incorporated two hearts which appear subtly, extending through the color field surrounding the 3 animal friends and also carved into the frame. One heart is right-side up and the other is the mirror image in the opposite direction.

Like Rexi, Molly’s painting was done with soft pastels on sanded paper on the in-set center and the large mat, with my carved and painted frame, 33 inch x 23 inch.

In the last photo shown below, you can see boxes of some of my thousands of various pastel paint sticks can be seen in the photo in front of the two paintings. Soft pastels sticks are literally sticks of pure fine pigments that are formed and compressed with a watery weak glue under heat. They are buttery soft to work with just like fine paints, which are made from the exact same pigments. - G.P.L.