Mary Croley may work day-to-day with dirt-coated hands planting flowers at B & B Nursery, but she spends her free time mixing and matching paints to create works of art.

Her latest creation went to the Butler County Humane Society where she painted a cat and dog picture that has now been printed on T-shirts for the nonprofit organization.

“I paint and do some shows, and I had taken some work to the Old Time Farm Day show,” Croley said. “One of the pictures I had taken was a cat picture and a friend of mine, also an artist, said, ‘You know that would make a great T-shirt for the Humane Society.’”

Butler County Humane Society volunteers Kimberly Matthews and Kandys Killough just happened to be at the same event and also thought the same thing about the painting.

After the Humane Society voted to use the painting for T-shirts, it agreed that there needed to be a matching dog picture as well.

“I did a dog picture and Kandys purchased the cat picture and the dog picture for herself,” Croley said. “I gave them the rights to print the shirts from those pictures.”

The pictures were done with water-soluble wax pastels, Croley said. The texture looks like color crayons at first, but then are blended with water.

“I also used with that some India ink,” Croley said. “It’s a mixed-media picture done on watercolor paper.”

Because Croley does the painting in her free time, it takes a while for her to finish the works on a typical basis.

“I think I worked on the dog picture off and on for a week or so,” Croley said. “I had to come up with the dogs, and then I came up with a sketch for the dogs and come up with a design.”

The T-shirts are $19 and can be purchased at The Smokehouse or the Shell Depot. All proceeds go toward the Butler County Humane Society.

“I’m really thrilled and just tickled,” Croley said. “I think they have a very worthy organization, and they’re doing some really good work.”