Medium: Watercolor, Digital/Photoshop, Image Size: 20”h x 17″w, ©2002.

At the time this design was created, my husband and I owned Trekker Designs, an apparel decorating company, and one of the things we did was to screen print our designs onto apparel products and novelty gifts and sell them to our wholesale clients. One of our biggest clients was the Black Bear Diner Corporation. This design was one of the many black bear artworks we created which were printed on clothing, mugs, and cards that we sold to Black Bear Diner to sell in their diners and to be worn by employees. I created this design when I saw a very short man in the grocery store who was wearing a Big Dog T-shirt that said, “That’s Mister Big Dog to You!” I thought, what a rude shirt to wear for such a size impaired person, so I figured I would respond with a design that would put those Big Dog fans in their rightful squashed place.

Dogs are definitely man’s best friend – most of the time, but sometimes they can get a bit too much attitude. When this happens, it’s time to politely put them in their proper places by sitting on them. In doing so you’ll discover, as this bear did, Dogs do make soft, comfy chairs. If you have issues with the knarly, stuck up attitude of people who wear Big Dogs apparel, then here is the perfect way to politely show them who is boss. Bears definitely rule. In fact, sitting on those Big Dogs is quite nice, as this bear discovered.

Painted in watercolor, scanned into the computer, floated, graphics, colors, effects, and text were done in Photoshop.