>The Biggest Diva of Them All

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"Genna, (above) our 'Plow', arrived 2 years after we got Bailey. Genna was 5 years old at the time and had been living with Jane Worthmann, our breeder. Jane was preparing for a new litter of puppies, and had about five adult show dogs at the time. She really needed to reduce her adult dog group to be able to handle the new litter. I offered to help, and ended up taking Genna home the same day the litter of pups arrived. She always was a dog with a mission. She wanted what she wanted, when she wanted it. Sometimes, my brother would go to the shows with us to help hold on to the four dogs. At a show, I asked him to hold Genna while I walked Bailey over to the handler that was going to be showing her. I walked away with Bailey, and I started to hear all of this noise behind us. It turned out that Genna wanted "her mom" and was not going to stop until she got to me. My brother, who happens to work out quite frequently, was flying behind Genna trying to get control of her leash. He said all he could do was yell out "Excuse me!!" "Sorry!!!" "Coming through!!!" as crates went flying and people picked up their small dogs out of Genna's way. She did not stop until she reached me--followed by my poor brother totally out of breath! She was our Plow until the end. She spent the last year of her life (she was 13 1/2!) on a doggie orthopedic bed (she had developed really bad arthritis--she weighed over 120 lbs.), wearing Depends diapers, and drinking Ensure. She would literally "bark" orders at my husband. "Get in here!" "Flip me over!" "Get me my Ensure--I want strawberry this time!". She was a riot! She would get those four pistons (i.e. legs) going, and just go! Her show name was Stapleford's Sterling Silver, because she had the most striking color of grey. Her head was solid white, and her grey gleamed like sterling. By the way, Genna was only one of two pups in the litter. Both of the pups were girls, and ended up weighing over 120 lbs. Her mom, on the other hand, weighed only 45 lbs. and her name was Tuppence."

After reading Genna's story, I decided that she may have been the most demanding dog of all four sheepies. She's my personal favorite, too. This afternoon, I added a third layer of fringe on her head to make her 'hairstyle' look even bigger. Can you see the difference?? I love it because her hair moves the most. I used a combination of matte opaque aurora borealis seed beads and opaque clear seed beads. All of the beads used on this piece are Japanese size 15's, which are very small. I prefer this size because they allow me to add a great amount of detail in a small amount of space.

I believe that I am finally finished with the beaded portion of this piece. The above photo shows all four of The Divas together. (Click to enlarge Bailey, Rachel, Eliza, & Genna.) Below is the photo that I've been working from. Next, I'll begin mounting the beadwork to a canvas.

I do have a vision of how I would like the finished piece to look.

The difficult part will be how to achieve it....