Birthday photos!

(click on the image to see it enlarged, he's even cuter!) This was a small celebration today. Enzo got two birthday biscuits from the gourmet doggie bakery down the street. He also got a gorilla squeaky, a red backpack for trails this fall, and a life vest for going out on the lake this weekend with my folks up in Arkansas. He loved his presents and the attention, and new somehow what we were unwrapping was all for him. At 18.3 pounds, he's a real armful of love!

Enzo is 1!

I had to do a watercolor of Enzo and the party I'd love to have thrown him. From Left to Right, that is Georgia (not Twosers as a ghost!) a Korean Jindo dog who Jill would dogsit and Enzo would torment (she'd growl and play with Enzo at the same time, really funny). Next is Ladka, the pomeranian and then Kicki and Buddy, Jill's two Italian Greyhounds (Kicki is holding an old fashion ear trumpet because Jill thinks she's gone deaf). My parents two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Elle and Lucy, are next after Enzo, and then I had to have party pooper, so Ryan's cat Franklin crashed it!

At the Codfish Ball

Ok, again with the cute, but that's what the 1:2.5 ratio is all about! And if nothing else, I'm enjoying drawing kids, which before I think I could count on one hand how many illustrations of children I'd done that weren't commissions.

On a personal note, this is me when I was 6 years old dressed as a codfish and dancing in a recital to the song "Codfish Ball." All I remember are the words to the chorus:
Come along and follow me
To the bottom of the sea
We'll join in the Jamboree
At the Codfish ball

In the Box!

Ok, I know this cat girl is borderline cavity inducing cute, but bear with me. The reason I'm posting it is because it's the first totally digital drawing I've made in any program that didn't get deleted about 8 seconds after it's creation. This image wasn't drawn on paper and scanned the way I usually work. I drew this out in Manga Studio, a computer program, and by jove, I could actually draw and work with it. The scary thing is that while going through the tutorial, it said to "draw something," and this came out! I mean, what, am I not catering to my inner cutie patootie or something? So while this little sketch won't be one I brag about, privately I'll be going "Hey, I don't have to delete this!"

Chibis

Well, I've been reading more about Manga in preparation for working on Nor again. I found it interesting that the ratio of head to body determines the audience of readers. For instance this 1:1 ration (the head's as big as the rest of the body) is considered a 'chibi' and is used for cutout illustrations and children's illustration. Keeping proportions in mind should help me in my own work (I hope).

I embroider!

So sorry I haven't posted on my beloved blog. Just been busy and life's been hectic, but I'm back on the blog wagon now!

This is a sushi design I drew and embroidered on a Tshirt last weekend. I got a book, and it was fun to work on. I'll post some more soon, and will continue to share... I promise!

faun dancing in the woods

Well, this faun's had several lives, first pencil, then colored pencil, then digital. I like the silkscreen look of this and will have to keep playing with it. Hopefully I'll have a few more fantasy pieces to add when I update the website.

Camp Lizard

Finishing up Camp Lizard, and this is the Author Picture for me. I like the roughness of it, looks more personal.

Our Summer Vacation 2007

(click on to enlarge) So here's the collage I made of our trip to California. We saw Disneyland, the Getty, the San Diego Zoo, the inside of lots or great eateries, our family, and even more food! *Note: Caricatures are not true to life! hehehe!

Our Summer Vacation: Star Watching

Got to see Ryan, my brother the actor, in LA after we went through the Getty. He took us to a great pub and then out to a cool bar called the Golden Gopher. He had great stories about the city and movies. We had fun being his entourage for a night :)

Our Summer Vacation: Tink's a dude!

So we were walking around Disneyland about the time of the fireworks display, and Tinkerbell comes zipping down the cable in front of the castle. We were walking through the crowd and someone said, "Hey, they're using the dude Tinkerbell tonight." Apparently, so the people in the cheap seats can see, Tink needs to be a little more stocky than one would think!

Our Summer Vacation: Hillcrest

Ok, so why is there a giraffe in drag? Well, while walking to the restaurant in Hillcrest, an artsy part of San Diego, we passed a homeless transvestite eating a hotdog and holding a knock off Louis Vuitton handbag. Classic! Also that piece of pie was evil and decadent, chocolate mousse and creamy icing and, hand to God, orchid flowers for decoration on top!

Our Summer Vacation: Finding Nemo

The other times we've been to Disneyland, the submarine ride had been shut down. Not this year! It's back now as a Finding Nemo ride, and the wait during the day was like over 2 hours (yikes!). We love the movie and we had to ride this thing, so we formed a strategy. We got in line right before the park closed because we asked and they will finish the line before shutting it off. We only waited a little over an hour, and it was worth it! I don't know how they projected the images, but peering through the portholes, it looked like Nemo and friends were really swimming in the water in front of you. Very cool!

Our Summer Vacation: We saw Seals!

We went sailing on Tom's knock-about sailboat and saw seals hopping on and off the red buoy. Lauren told me several times on the trip that pelicans "smell kind of funny."

Our Summer Vacation: Lauren and Will

Here's Lauren losing her shoe so her prince will chase her down and see if it fits! Will behind them I remembered was infatuated with the Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner. And a Dutch Baby is a glorious specialty breakfast item that takes 45 min. to prepare and worth it x3!

Our Summer Vacation: Me and Mike

So I started doodling images from our trip, and it turned into a bigger collage of drawings. I rediscovered prismacolor pencils (which I'll write on later, heehee). So this is a caricature of Mike and I, me with my Pirates of the Caribbean Mouse ears, and Mike with his fancy camera. Mike has about 80 various Golf related baseball caps. I haven't gone back to check if this hat I drew actually exists or not.

Summer Show

This year for my summer Art Show, I'm going to frame some watercolors of my San Diego Zoo trip. I did some "live" drawing and painting on site, and Mike took some wonderful photos with his digital SLR camera. I think I may be able to find some patrons for these, and I enjoyed painting them. For my own personal show I do try to find something I really like to work on, since the rest of the year I may be obligated to work on other projects not exactly of my choosing. So, I can't go wrong with the Zoo!

California Trip!

Haven't had time to get our pictures downloaded, but Mom and Dad 2 sent this one, and I hadn't blogged in so long, I felt something needed to go up. We had a great time, and Lauren and Will are the cutest niece and nephew to be found (IMHO)!

Where to find Love!

(clickon to enlarge)
Enzo's such a lover, I had to share where he gets kisses and luvin' around town!

Scalliwags!

Me and my scurvy dog!

I did a pirate storytime and had to pose with my lil buckaneer! Mike found it all kind of creepy, heehee...

Enzo with our pets

(Click on to enlarge!)

Knitting with Enzo

Knitting with Enzo

1. First I must be measured

2. I must not play tug with the knitting

3. I have to try on lots of different sweater outfits

4. Watch out for my tongue!

5. I must not try to take take off the outfits!

Emma Test

This is Emma, a Yellow Mongoose featured in the picture book I'm working on. And I just love her and her freaky red eyes! Yellow mongooses actually have red eyes like her's, and since she's at first mistaken for a ferret from behind, when she turns and flashes these peepers, no one'll mistake her for a ferret!

Looking forward to working more on the book!

Night out on the town!

I know two little scamps who got out sometime last night and went tearing around our miniature Springfield, and they're names are Topsy and Turvy, our 2 sugar gliders!

Mike hears something and goes into the studio and they're both out and on top of their cage and they have that moment in Pulp Fiction where Bruce Willis finds John Travolta in his apartment. Then they fly off and Mike has to yank me out of bed to help catch them so he can go to work. We're unsure how they managed their day pass to Bart Simpson land, but we can only imagine what they made of a world built their size full of yellow people.

Happy Mother's Day!

It's Mother's Day and I in honor of my Mom, I thought I'd share a funny story. When I was 8 I got a parakeet named Binky (This watercolor is a parakeet, but it looks like Bonnie - Binky was blue). Mom was so excited for me, she'd wrapped up a box of bird food for me to open at the skating birthday party I'd had. She'd hidden the bird in the guest bathroom in the days before the party. When I got home I was so engrossed with Binky, I checked on him on and off all day and into the evening.

Right before bed I looked under the blanket one last time to see my new pet, and he only had one leg! In true kid fashion, I went crying to my Mommy (even though Dad was a doctor and maybe better qualified for a medical bird emergency!). Mom followed me back to my room and we uncovered Binky's cage and we looked on the bottom of the cage for the missing foot.

And then Binky wokeup and his missing foot came down from under his feathers and looked at us like we'd lost our minds!

We laughed about it, but I always remembered I could go to my Mom when the world doesn't make sense.

Love you, Mom!
(all pet's legs accounted for!)

Mom informs me of possible sibling...

Mom's watching Dancing with the Stars and had to pause and count on one hand just how many sons did she have back in the seventies, hee hee! This speed skater guy, Apolo Anton Ohno is a dead ringer for my brother Ryan (or Spencer if you go by his cool stage name). I thought this was funny since everyone thought I looked like Nancy Karigan's sister way back when. What's with us and skaters?!

red crowned crane

This is a Japanese Red Crowned Crane. It is the second rarest crane in the world, and it's symbolic of luck and fidelity in Asia. The San Antonio Zoo has a pair of these and they are so magestic and beautiful. The background is a snow landscape which is where they do their mating courtship dance shown here. The red chop in the corner stands for longevity.

Tawny Afternoon

Well, I enjoyed working on this little guy. He's going on sale tomorrow in a small show in Westlake. Mama needs a new pair of shoes!

Us at Fredericksberg

This was taken in a garden in town. Enzo got lots of attention and was a big hit with the ladies. Too bad such a chick magnet is being wasted and a happily married couple... right, honey? *poke*

Family Visit Pics

Notice the the barely held back punch! Hey, it wasn't my idea to climb a huge rock! The view was amazing, and Enzo did great. We want to go back!No, we didn't climb up to Mars, it just looks like it... and felt like it!

Some parts were really steep, like 45 degree angle steep!

Dad2 took this picture standing, not on his belly or some weird position, that's just the grade of the hill.

God and Godess Party Pic

I figured Mike hadn't been featured in the blog for a while... and may not be happy with the chosen photo, but he DID want to be Steve the God of Hairdos. I'm Medusa so we sorta went together!

Love ya, hun! heehee

Out Takes!

Uh, oh. I got some disgruntled froggies. Going to be some tough competition in the next book!

Last Frame!

Yeeeehaw! This is the last frame of the first book of Camp Lizard! I still have some edits and some appendix fun stuff, but boy, it feels great to be sorta, kinda done!

About the Shootings

"A respect should be found, for Life which goes around, and around, and around."
-from Little Bunny Kung Fu

Stories like this remind me of the concerns I've had that led to writing a simple story with an important theme: Respect for Life.

When people lose their worth in their own eyes and in eyes of others, this kind of horrible thing is what happens. These victims weren't people in the eyes of the killer, they were a body count and the higher the better. You couldn't have ANY respect for life, his or theirs, and be able to do this.

I hope we're able to teach children to respect life. I know there's a lot of adult entertainment out there that does not reinforce that, but if we can reach children when they're young, they have a better chance of assimilating what comes as they mature.

Ok, now I'm stepping off my soap dish... er, box.

Zoo Trip

(Click on to enlarge) Not a great day at the zoo, except the temperature which was great at 65 degrees. EVERYONE was there, on a Saturday I should've expected, but still... I got to tell a mother that Cheetos would make any animal in the zoo sick so she should probably not let her kids toss them down to the endangered wildlife. Just doing my part *sigh* But I always enjoy an art trek through the zoo. :)

Left Brain Credit

Ok, so my Left Brain felt left out for glossing over the plaid that I did digitally. It was all "Oh, sure, you share all the stuff with cute little critters and whimsical watercolors, but do I get any credit for my calculated execution of form and function resulting in a the complex tartan pattern?!"

So here you go, Leftie. Plaid. Oooo. Aaaaaaa.

Meet Fergus

Another year, another picture book! This is the character study for Fergus the Ferret. He is a little ferret from Scotland who gets a postcard from his cousins and takes a trip to North America to find them, but he always just misses them. The publisher is going to go ahead and have little plush dolls made like we did Little Bunny Kung Fu. (Yeah!)

The plaid in his hat, scarf and kilt I have tried and failed to paint. Even doing it slowly in layers of watercolor, it would turn to mush, and the precision that makes plaid... um, plaid is lost, so I contrived a way to do it digitally. And just to point out, I did make that plaid digitally myself. So I can enlarge, shrink and stretch it however I need to. It wasn't a great time saver over painting, but I'm happier with the results... though I may loathe plaid for the rest of my life after this book!

Camp Lizard Flyer!

Happy Easter!

Read it again, Bunny Lady!

I had a couple of book signings/storytimes this week. Each went great and it was fun to be an author. At Sunset valley's BN I signed a book to another Regan, so that was neat. She and her brother are interested in writing and art. The signing today was fun, we had cupcakes and an easter egg hunt, which we gave a plush bunny away as a prize (it was the last egg found, talk about suspense).

Then the cutest thing, the little boy stayed afterward and asked me to read it again! I had a Wedding Crashers moment (Make me a bike, clown!) but the kid was adorable, so I got to do an encore.

And now it's sleeting?!? Maybe we'll do another egg hunt inside tomorrow! Brrrr!

Time for Enzo's Shower

Time for Enzo's Shower:

1. First we take off my collar and put cottonballs in my ear.

2. I wait while Mama has her shower.

3. When it's my turn, Mama picks me up.

4. Mama washes me while I lick the water up.

5. Then I bark at the hair dryer.

Carousel Seahorse

This is a watercolor I did today that I'm thinking about turning into a series for a show I have in July. It would be animals in a carousel like this one. I just think they're fanciful and would look neat hanging on a wall all together.

The last themed show I did was one on owls and that did well, so I hope these do, too.

Medusa and Snake

Not a great shot of my toga, but you can see my snake hair and Capote in my hands.

I'm off for a costume party. The theme is Gods and Goddesses, so I'm Medusa (the snake stays home, sigh). Mike is going as "Steve the God of Hairdo's" which is a refference to one of our favorite commedians Eddie Izzard.

We'll take more picks and if my toga stays together I'll post some!

Behold the finished sweater!

I can Knit!

I don't think this counts as cruelty to animals, but he's looking at me like, "Moooo-oooom!" This wasn't based on a pattern, it was sort of a learning piece. I made a "shrug" or one big sleeve that wraps around him, using an alternating "stockinette" stitch. I then knitted a wrap around scarf that makes a collar around the neck then circles in front then tucks under itself. I let it be a little roomy knowing next time it was actually cold he'd be bigger.

I enjoy knitting, it sort of took the edge off of all the stuff I had going on this month. I took it to work and knitted on my breaks. I want to get good enough to do a sweater for Enzo and a matching hat and scarf for me. Lookout neighborhood!

My Morning Drive

I would LOVE to have a boring drive to work, but Life has other plans. I'd recently been accosted by an insane driver who wanted to meet me in the HEB parking lot and "kick my f---ing a$$." Did I mention I've never met this woman or have a clue why I needed kicking of any kind?

Well, this morning was no exception in the Keep Austin Weird, and We Mean REALLY Weird trend.

I'm making my way out of our neighborhood this morning at 6:30 in the am, and I see two pale shapes up ahead by the road. I get a little closer and I see they're people... I get a little closer and see they're naked! Stark, birthday suit naked! And a third man was there fully clothed. I drove past and they didn't smile, wave, try to cover up, just stood there on the side of the road. Really weird, huh?!

Maybe it's the non-conformist artsy-fartsy side of me that has spent the day trying to come up with legitimate reasons for this encounter. I've come up with:

1. They were in some sort of "Lost a Bet" or "Frat Initiation" ritual that involves phrases like "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" This is a weak explanation given the somberness and lack of mischiviousness I got, though it was really early.
2. The Mothership orbiting around the earth dropped off these two visitors. I figure the clothed one is responsible for "Taking them to our Leader."
3. The two naked men were werewolves that just changed back. Yes, the big downer for lycanthropes we all know is that when you transmutate into your animal form, your clothes are ruined. I figure the two were out marking territory when the third happened up on them and they shifted back.
4. The three were a coven of Pagan/Wiccan witches celebrating the coming of spring with a ceremony requiring that 2 be "sky clad."
5. Escaped Loonies. This is probably the top runner for likelihood.
   

I feel Eddie's Pain...

Must... keep... drawing... Can't... stop... must... go... on... *gasp*

Promo Card

I got to design a promotional postcard for Camp Lizard. We'll be handing them out along with an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) at the Texas Library Assoc. convention next month. I thought it'd be fun to have it look like they were taking a picture to send back home from camp. The back of the card promotes the book. I'm getting excited about finishing it!

There she is!

Just a doodle I did for fun that I painted. It's a play on perspective and very compact. I've been looking at and reading old fairytales, so there may be more coming.