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.

The crow flies at dawn

That's an in-joke with my family: My dad called me while I was at college and told me "The academy awards are on tonight" and Jolene, my sorority sister thought it might've been code for something! Like: The crow flies at dawn... that is all...

I love getting calls from my dad every year, letting me know the academy awards are on tonight. And this year, I must say, I don't have that "What-the-bleep" feeling I've had in years past where I felt a really deserving film was totally blown off.

But this year I really liked the Departed. I alone of my friends went and saw the Queen and thought it was deserving. And of course I loved Little Miss Sunshine, too. And I walked out of the theater of the Last King of Scotland thinking no one would pop off the screen like Forrest Whitaker.

I did like Pans Labyrinth, but I told people that while it was good, it wasn't ground breaking. Terry Gilliam had been doing the same in the 80's with films like Brazil and the Adventures of Baron Munchousen (sp?!). Though I really like the director, and it was a really well made movie... I've just been watching films like that longer than the average American movie-goer.

Well, I'm off to bed, but wanted to record my Academy thoughts.

I loved the Tom Hanks response to that crap announcer backstage! Mike wouldn't let me DVR rewind it, but I nearly fell out of my chair!

Night!