sketched out

I did a preliminary sketch for my entry in Alicia Padrón’s book giveway. The theme is the importance of trees in celebration of the publication of the gorgeous book she illustrated, “The Wish Trees.” Her children will be the judges and chose the winner of the giveaway. Should be a pretty good test of how well one’s art is recieved by children, eh?

So, before I enter this drawing, I plan on adding color. But for now I’m going to try to get a little mileage out of my little tree dude.

I’ve procrastinated long enough! My dear friends Alicia from My Place Over the Hill and Colleen from The Frog Blog both tagged me for the “Day in the Life” meme. It was great fun reading theirs. Now I hope I can live up to the challenge. This is what a typical week day is like for me. Join me, won’t you?

5:30-6:00am
I not only set my clock 15 minutes ahead to “fool” myself, I also set the alarm for 5:30 so I can continuously hit the snooze, and again, “fool” myself that I’m cheating time somehow. The cacophony that ensues: Brrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaangggg, smack, @#%*! Brrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaangggg, smack, @#%*! goes on for about 30 minutes. Finally, however, there is one thing that finally gets my hiney out of bed. It comes in the form of a little black paw, batting gently at my nose, with just a hint of claw. Just a hint mind you. Right about this time, coming from a different direction, a furry white head starts butting the side of my chin and cheek, ever so insistently. So it’s the batting, the butting and eventual wet nose sniffing around my ear area that eventually wakes me up.

As my eyes slowly open, Read the rest of this entry »

MONSTER

A monster with horns
as prickly as thorns,
delighted in causing folks dread.

But he shuddered with fright,
at the thought that there might
be a kid hiding under his bed.

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So I seem to be on this monster kick and since I opted to have a pleasant dining experience with my sweetie tonight, instead of drawing (and instead of going to the gym… oh the horror), I dusted of this little chestnut from last year and re-posted it.

All is fair in love, war and blogging, right?

Feigning death among man-bugs has risen sharply in the past decade, according to leading entomologists.

So anyway, speaking of Godzilla…

… oh, wait, er, um, actually, I was talking about The Pico Award. That’s it!

Yes, the Pico is a sweet little award given by Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps because today is Monday. Maybe the unseasonable 98 degree heat can be blamed. Then again, it may simply be the mass quantity of sugar-free fudgesicles consumed in an attempt to beat said unseasonable heat. What ever the reason, Nessie, that behemoth, Scottish lass of Loch Ness Monster lore, continually intruded upon my thoughts today.

She did this all day long.

Her and that maniacally, cheerful grin.

My only recourse, tonight, was to wipe the fudgesicle schmutz off my chin and draw Nessie. Draw her in an effort to exorcise the silly, sea serpent, nuisance from my mind.

Ok, that, and just one more fudgesicle.

Most weekdays, around 2 p.m. you’ll find me hanging out at a ridiculously popular cafe, walking distance from where I work in the Valley. I usually sip a little coffee, (decaf these days) and do some sketching. Bunnies perhaps.

Not feeling especially moved to draw any of the customers du jour today, I did, in fact, sketch out a bunny or two. As I scrawled out a cottontail, behind me I could hear an impatient Read the rest of this entry »

I watched a squirrel gracefully bound across the street in front of my car the other day. His small body and bushy tail undulated comically to the other side of the busy thoroughfare. As I absentmindedly watched, my car idling at the red light, I was reminded of Read the rest of this entry »

For reasons I won’t bore you with right now, my doctor suggested I cut down on my caffeine intake. What? Two to three double, short cappuccinos a day is too much?

Apparently it is… who knew?

So, obediently I began Read the rest of this entry »

Tom and I took a drive to Lancaster today to experience some California poppy action. We drove an hour to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve to experience what was touted as peak blooming time and we were hell-bent on getting some kick-butt photos.

We were not disappointed. Well, maybe just a little. Although the hills were ablaze with the delicate red-headed beauties, high winds had caused the flowers to become shy and close themselves up. Still the experience was akin to a scene right out of the Wizard of Oz. But instead of curling up and taking a snooze amongst the firey blooms, like Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, we found ourselves being literally pushed and tossed about by what must have been at least 60 mph winds.

One poor chap had his glasses blow right off his face and spent quite a bit of time searching through the shrubbery to find them. It was as if Mother Nature was playing hide and seek with him. Not sure if he ever did find them. Chalk one up for Mama Natch.

Meanwhile, Tom and I took turns standing with our arms outstretched, like a couple of goofy kids, leaning forward and letting the wind hold us up. It felt a bit like flying, flying over a red carpet of paaahhhhhhhppies!

So, if you’re ever in the area, say around April, you really must stop by and see this wonder of the natural world. But hopefully, for your full enjoyment, the winds will be a bit more tame and the wee poppies will be coaxed into opening up and showing their full glory.

The Sugar Frosted Goodness challenge this week is “Dragon,” so I got very excited, because if there’s one thing I adore, it’s a dragon. And really, who doesn’t? I mean, what’s not to love? They’re huge, scaly, often times cranky and they breath fire, for crying out loud. You get one of these guys as a pet, you’re going to get some respect around the neighborhood.

I did this a few years ago, as cover art of the Chico News & Review, an alternative weekly in Northern California. CNR was featuring an annual writing contest and wanted their cover image to play off the “Infinite Monkey Theorem.” This theorem states that a monkey (or in this case, apes) hitting keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Sound far-fetched? It may be. However, there are folks that claim they’ve worked it out mathematically. Who am I to argue, I was never good at math.

I was invited by my friend Laurel of Studio Lolo fame, to write a six word memoir. A bit of a challenge, but for Laurel, I’ll give it a try.

Here are the rules:

1. Write a six word memoir and post it on your blog. Feel free to add an image.

2. Link your post to the person who tagged you.

3. Tag 5 more people and link to them.

4. Comment on the tagged blogs and invite them to participate…no pressure (0;

I’m inviting friends and family, because they are writers and they will still like me, even if I tag them… I hope.

Visual Kaos

Artsea Fartsea

Snowee

Alexis

Words Incognito

Here is my six word memoir:

.

.

Head in clouds… feet on ground.

.

.

I’m not sure what the statute of limitation is on memes but the lovely, talented and whimsical Faruffa tagged me eons ago. She’s a sweetie for thinking of me and, it’s high time I took the challenge.

So here’s the deal. I am to reveal 6 top secrets about myself and pass the mission on to six others. So here goes:

1. I secretly wish I was a cowgirl. Together with my cat Joey and a saddlebag full of Luna Bars and kibble, we would ride the range together. We would shout at all the little dawgies to git along! The cattle we’d drive would be dairy cows. Yes, dairy cows, riding the range, giving milk, living free, (it could happen.)

2. I not so secretly tend to avoid bread, because it makes me puff up like a blow fish. This generally lasts for mmmmmm… a week or two, at which point I binge on all the bread I can get my grubby mitts on and… puff up like a blowfish.

3. I have a secret, irrational fear of emptying the trash on my computer. I am certain that an urgently, important, life altering file has been flung in there by some ill-fated, slip of the wrist and I won’t notice it until I hit “empty trash.” Am I so wrong?

4. For those who know me, it’s no secret that it took an inordinate amount of time and copious amounts of frog kissing to finally find a partner that I not only love, but also like… a lot. That would be Tom, my husband. The best part is, he actually has the patience to put up with my exhausting, shenanigans and still… he thinks I’m cute. I’m lucky.

5. I use ellipses and parenthesis way too much… (it’s a curse.)

6. My usual sun-shiney personality can, at times, be marred with the occasional crankiness. Especially if I’m being judged for using ellipses and parenthesis too much. For instance, that person on number 5… judging me. Hey, number 5, you talkin’ to me?

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Alright, I’ve decided this mission is far too dangerous to pass along, so I am going it alone on this one. Your secrets are safe for now. Unless, of course, any of you brave souls want to go for it!

Ciao!

This here is what you call laziness, as in posting an illustration done years ago, instead of drawing something original tonight.

Hey, no one’s perfecte, eh?

This spot illo was created for a client newsletter illustrating, executive team building through water sports or some such corporate shenanigans. Honestly I can’t remember now. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

I can tell you one thing, this little bit of my past is serving a higher purpose tonight. It’s allowing me to get to bed at a decent hour… yaaaaawn…

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz