proud as a peacock

This is a digital preview of the silkscreen I plan to do (and I'm pleased just with this version!). The process of silkscreen is each color is considered a run, so this piece will have around 6 runs with 3 stencils cut out and doilies for texture, and a final "drawing fluid" run. Basically, it'll brush me up on doing these since it's been a decade since I had the class at Baylor! I'm looking forward to it!

start your silkscreens!

I made a small investment in a silkscreening setup so that I can make silkscreen prints (serigraphs) and also be able to silkscreen my art on tshirts and things. There's a lot you can do with Silkscreen, but it's that graphic look that I'm looking forward to playing with. This is a pattern I made of gecko feet that might be part of a background or laid over something... we'll see!

Mighty Texas Dog Walk

This was so fun today(that's Mike and Jill, I'm not in the collage), and I think I'll have to do an illustration or two from it. The weather was cool and the sky overcast, but the dogs were happy and perky. So many dogs and people, some in groups (like the poodle brigade and the corgi crew) I liked how the people and dogs were so varied and different, but we were all there doing the walk together. Have to say, the beagles and daschunds made the biggest showing, at least from where we were in the parade. And lots of tiny dogs were there, many in little sweaters and outfits. Hope to do it again next year :)

Wildflower Center

On my day off I loaded up the art bag and went down to the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center and had a nice time taking pictures and drawing the flowers in bloom. Haven't actually been during the bluebonnet bloom and it was impressive.

self portrait

this was drawn over an actual photo of me, so the lines are true to life. Fun to do and I'm getting faster, too...

Ok, now let's blow the dust off this blog!

Well, I've had stuff going on, but that's no reason to neglect my blog. And truth be told, I haven't actually been much of an artist lately, so not much was going on in my head to talk about. I have been illustrating, though, and that's been running smoothly, but I'm way backed up on personal creative expression.

So I will endeavor to post some little doodle daily that I either do digitally or scan in. We'll see how it goes!

In the meantime...

Gingerbread Birdhouse!

With the addition of birds to our menagerie, I opted for the gingerbread Birdcage instead of house. It was fun to make with Jill, maybe it will be a new holiday tradition! :)

Brisby will be missed

We lost our pet bearded dragon, Brisby, this weekend. He was around 7 years old and died from a long term bone deficiency problem. We tried reversing it, but the weather turned cold and Brisby slipped into hibernation and died peacefully in his sleep. Mike and I know now to expose all our desert lizards to real sunlight to help avoid this in the future. But we will miss Brisby, he was prickly be we loved him.

Let's get crackin'!

Decided that The Nutcracker will by my theme for this Christmas! I've done this little painting to sell, and Mike and I have tickets to see the Austin Ballet do the Nutcracker on the 23rd of December.

vacation impressions

These were too funny, but these are from our vacation last month: Mike doing an impression of a Bernini sculpture at the Getty Art Museum that I'd liked, and me at the San Diego Zoo doing an impression of some kind of wild animal... or maybe it was the vacation kicking in!

night of the living dead!

For Halloween Mike was Shaun of the Dead and I was his zombie wife! We had several people comment "You've got red on you" to Mike, it was great!

Happy Halloween!

Yep, these are my geckos if I could dress them up for Halloween!

Cowgirl Model

Another outfit from the sketch group. She's kneeling on a old school round cushion piece (y'know the kind that look like a jelly mold?). That's why her knees sort of drop out. It was a 10 min pose, so I was sketching and painting fast. I was in a spot on the side of the group and didn't get that many great poses, but this one was perfect!

Material Girl

I had my "Dr. Sketchy" figure drawing group last Saturday and the theme was the 80's so our model came out in some vintage outfits, and the DJ played classic 80's rock and metal... and I'm a little embarrassed over how much I enjoyed drawing to it! If I get in a rut, I may have to turn to that digital music channel and get my "Paradise City" fix :)

This piece I obviously finished at home on the computer, but the sketch was made at the session, along with the pen doodles (I got a little art set at work, and everyone was like "Ah, those take me back!).

Trying out new "old" looks

Finding some inspiration in Mucha and other Art Nouveau artists. It's a stylistic way to represent things, and I like the panels, patterns, and textures. This is a piece about walking Enzo and scaring off cats, squirrels and birds. We'll see where and when I use this style, but it's fun for me, and I need some fun!

Website under Construction

I've had the reality check that I have a new book coming out, so I need to go great guns on my website! I'm changing several elements of it, but this will be the new homepage. It's a lot of work, and Mike will be a big help. Can't wait to email everyone when it's ready!

How many lizards do you see?

If you answered one, look harder! Funny, even though Thumbkin is bright green, red and gold he's just as hard to spot in the tank as the leaf tail gecko.

And guess who's 2 years old!

Enzo had his 2nd birthday on Monday, and here he is being ever so cute all curled up in a ball, shown on top, and crashed out with his new birthday toys below. I'd have liked to thrown a little party, but it came at the end of a stressful week, so we'll have to have a celebration soon. We did take him downtown to the Lofty Dog, where he met Pickles the Pug and picked out he raccoon tug toy. I can't believe 2 years have flown by! He's making life too fun :)

The Reptile Expo

Well, the Austin Reptile and Amphibian Show was last weekend and here you see my table set up with all the artwork I offered. There were canvases, framed watercolors and drawings, and two portfolios of prints and unframed artwork. Long story short, I made a small profit after taking into account the table fee and other small expenses, but I think my display served better as advertising for what I could do with commission work. I had some business cards and brochures run off at Kinkos that advertised various commission possibilities, a popular one being "Tattoo Design." And people were showing their ink at the show! I saw some really intricate and unique tattoos, that while I wouldn't want to be covered in them, I could have a blast designing them for other people. So, hopefully there's revenue still to be tallied with commissions, but even if not, I did have a lot of fun. I got to go to a cookout and see Tim's venomous snake shack (a whole room of pissed off rattlesnakes will get your blood pumping). And I met lots of neat people, who, I'm sorry dear readers, they "get the whole reptile thing." And it was a boost in the moral to hear nice things about my drawings and paintings. And my favorite sales pitch for my work was "Hey, they look great and you don't have to feed 'em!" :)

Scott Allen from One Stop Exotics had the table next to me, and we got to know each other a little. He was selling beautiful Jackson chameleons and gold dust day geckos. He had some left over and he gave me a male, because we'd guessed that Klondike was a female and he thought we'd have fun with 2 of them. Good plan, but turns out Klondike is a dude after all, and after a very entertaining tail and tongue display (ask Mike next time you see him to demonstrate), we had to pull the new gecko out and add him to Waldo's terrarium. So now we have "Where's Waldo and Where is Thumbkin" in the 28 gallon. So far it's working out in an odd couple day shift/night shift kinda way (finger's crossed).

Reptile Show Artwork In Progress

(click on to enlarge) This is one of the new paintings I did for the upcoming Reptile Show. I hope I find a buyer who'll love it as much as I do. This is actually a juvenile green tree python (the young ones are yellow or red, in this case). I should paint more snakes, it's relaxing for me. It's all repeating patterns and light hitting smooth surface... very zen like painting. I guess if I were drawing this from real life it would be less zen and more duck and weave!