A Dog's Trail.

If you're local to Cardiff and surrounding areas, you may have noticed a variety of Snoopy dog sculptures popping up around town.

Image Description: Alison's Snoopy sculpture fully painted and varsnished, facing to the right. The design is very busy and cartoon-like showing various images of dogs, nature and self-care.

I was lucky enough to be commissioned by Dogs's Trust (in partnership with Peanuts and Wild in Art) to create a very unique Snoopy for A Dog's Trail South Wales.

As a part of my second year of study as an Illustrator at USW, A Dog's Trail asked my class to design a black and white turnaround of one of the Snoopys that would be coloured in by the public as a part of an advertising event to promote the trail, and my design got chosen!

The theme of the brief was about wellbeing, and I created a design called "Self Care with Snoopy", which had lots of images of people interacting with dogs, nature, relaxation and exercise to represent

the theme of mental health and self-care.

In summer of 2021, after I hand drew my design onto a blank Snoopy sculpture, an event at Cardiff Castle was organised. The public could donate money to colour in parts of the sculpture in a safely socially distanced event that raised money for Dog's Trust Cardiff.

Image description: Photo taken at the Cardiff Castle "A Dog's Trail" Promotional Event, Alison is being interviewed next to her sculpture with Dog's Trust events team nearby.

I was there to volunteer and help out, and the event was a success! I also had my first ever filmed interview experience with students from Cardiff University, which was very nerve-wracking! However, it went really well and felt good to collaborate with other students of Cardiff.

The following winter, I was commissioned to touch up and finalise the Snoopy sculpture ready for the trail. My Snoopy was then moved to Roath Park when the trail had begun!

Image Descriptions: Before and after shots of the right-hand side of the Snoopy Sculpture torso. The left image shows what Snoopy looked like after the event, which had many doodles over it. The right-hand image shows the re-touched, fully varnished Snoopy.

I felt so fortunate to be a part of this project, especially being a student illustrator, as it was a high profile project in which the public interacted with my artwork.

I loved seeing snaps of my sculpture from members of the public who were following the trail, and I'd love to see more if you're reading this and have snapped some of your own!

I will never forget this experience and I hope that one day I can be a part of another art trail!

Thanks for reading!

By Alison Howard