My Work is Featured by Karen Litzinger

I’m so flattered—Karen Litzinger, author of Heal Your Heart: Coping with the Loss of a Pet, included mention of my animal sympathy cards and commissioned portraits in her latest e-newsletter.

She’s also local and we often attend the same events, so we recently saw each other at Hot Dogs in the Strip with the Animal Rescue League.

She’ll be facilitating an animal memorial and blessing on Pet Memorial Sunday, September 12 at Peaceful Pastures Pet Cemetery. I’ll be at the Chartiers Custom Pet Cremation remembrance at the same time, so I won’t get to join her there. (A few years ago, who would have thought there’d be this many pet remembrance events?!)

I will be able to see her again in October when she is available for animal blessings on October 3 at Journeys of Life In Shadyside, as a benefit for the Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania.

She mentioned one animal sympathy card in particular, the only one I currently have featuring a dog photo—it’s her dog Tika!

I take committing an animal’s image to any merchandise seriously. I can ask humans if they mind being the representative of something I create, but animals can’t directly answer that question so I need to intuit their answer. Of course, this works best with my own cats (as if they have a choice).

I don’t feel that I know most other animals well enough, but when I visited Karen and met Tika, who is a therapy dog, I knew instantly that she’d be happy to help heal someone’s grief on the cover of a sympathy card.

The other card she mentioned is the only non-pictorial card. I created the image using the abstract watercolor pattern I created for the back of her CD, working into the electronic version of the original art with PhotoShop and InDesign to create the path of hearts and paws.

She also has some exciting news about four radio interviews she’s had around the country in the last month.

I’m so glad to see Karen’s success with her CD. I’ve given it as a gift to friends who’ve lost their precious companions, and I know it certainly was comforting as I listened to it while I designed the illustrations, knowing Namir and I didn’t have too much more time together; I lost him a month after I finished the illustrations.

You can read Karen’s e-newsletter at her community site on iContact.