Akita Baby Onesie

from an original painting by L.A.Shepard

I have always found pleasure in drawing and painting since I was a very young child. I trained at art school in Cleveland, and thought I would someday work as a commercial artist. But as often happens, my life evolved quite differently than expected and my art became more of a hobby over the years. I married, moved up North to snow country and spent my time working along side of my wonderful husband in our small furniture design business in a little Ontario cottage town north of Toronto, raising our 3 kids and enjoying a simple, happy lifestyle. Life was idyllic. In the summer of 2006 our world was turned upside down when my husband went to the Emergency room with a blinding headache. He was diagnosed with a deadly brain tumour .I could...