Danae, colored pencil drawing 2 for calendar

This is going to be February girl in a calendar I'm putting together with drawings of the shelter animals on the island of Santorini, Greece.The calendar will be for sale (details will be made known online), and all earnings will go to Santorini Animal Welfare Association (SAWA).

This beautiful 7-year old German Shephard named Danae, now lives at the animal shelter in Santorini.
She once belonged to locals who owned a gas station, where she was kept permanently on a short chain, as a watch dog. After a few years the gas station went broke and the owners left the island. They simply left poor Danae behind, still on her chain. After a while she grew so thin that her collar just dropped off, and she started to roam the streets. Luckily the people that work at the shelter found her and she is now well looked after, but she still bears the scars from the treatment she used to receive, she is always a little wary and afraid of people. But Danae is a caring dog, and she tends to look after 'new' dogs at the shelter.

If only a patient and kind someone looking for a slightly mature dog would give her a home...

Calendar with drawings of Santorini stray animals (this is Irma - January)

My family has had (and still has) several former stray dogs from the Greek islands Santorini and Crete.
Such wonderful dogs! The shelters there are always full because too few of the local inhabitants spay and neuter their animals, and often they let them run free.
I wanted to help the people (mostly volunteers) who run the shelters, and I came up with the idea of designing a 2014 calendar with printed pictures of colored pencil drawings I am now making of animals that are currently in the Santorini shelter. This shelter is run by SAWA (Santorini Animal Welfare Association).

All money that is earned through selling the calendars, will go to the shelter to help the animals.

This is the first picture (January) of Irma, a pointer. Pointers and other hunting dogs are very popular with people who live on Santorini, but unfortunately they also abandon them frequently when they don't want, or need them anymore. A large number lives at the shelter. Irma is lucky enough to have found a home in the US in the near future, but there are many other dogs at the shelter, waiting for a loving home of their own.

Check out SAWA's Facebook page, for more information about what they do and the dogs that live at the shelter.

When ready, it will be possible to order the calendars online through my Facebook page, and I will also post the info here.

Portrait in black & white (100x65cm), stage 1

This time I've started working on a large black & white portrait (this is stage 1). Usually, I use a regular pencil or graphite when I work in black & white, but this time I want to use black, white and several grey colored pencils to see if I can create a 'softer' effect.
I hope to have it ready before the end of June, because I would like to enter it for the Derwent Art Prize 2013 competition (closing date July 1st), together with the color portrait I drew recently.