ceiling the deal

UPSIDE DOWN

Eddy Van Schmeeling,
hung from the celing,
causing his mother to frown.

“Get down boy!” she pled.
Then smiling he said,
“Why mom? You’re the one upside down!”

…………………………………………………………………

Today I feel very honored and humbled because in addition to recieving the “You Make My Day” award from Roberta Baird of “A Mouse in the House,” last week, a few more of my blogger buddies, Kim Coles of “I’m With Sully”, Julia, of “Bobo Miow” and Alicia Padrón of “My Place Over the Hill” bestowed the “You Make My Day” award upon me over the past week.

All four of these ladies have made this whole blogging experience so much fun and along with a whole bunch of other folks, have made me feel like I’m part of a big, fat, creative community, that I just love! Thanks guys!

Here is how it works:
1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make me think and/or make my day.
2. Acknowledge the post of the award giver.
3. Display the “You Make my Day Award” logo with a link to the post that I wrote. (Optional)
4. Tell the award winners that they have won by commenting on their blogs with the news.

So now I pick 5 people who make my day. Not an easy thing to do, since there are a bunch of you guys who have kick butt blogs and who stop by and give tons of encouragement. But here goes:

Colleen of The Frog Blog

Angela of Angelato

Eugenia Gina of dua mata saya

Eli of Art by Eli

Radha of Ratlion’s Den

All 5 are seriously talented and just a bunch of really nice folk. Thanks to all!

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superstition

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.

Illustration Friday’s theme thise week is “Superstition.”

My drawing is a “mostly” finished watercolor/pastel for a children’s book project I’ve been dragging my feet on for quite a while now. Although not depicting the typical black cat, Friday the 13th, broken mirror type superstition, I figured the old monster-under-the bed theme illustrates a sort of superstion many children have. Although, whether or not it is a superstion or reality is still in question. I certainly had a hideous mouth breather lurking amongst the dust bunnies under my half of the bunk beds. If it wasn’t for the safety of my blanket, pulled up to my eyeballs for protection, I would have been monster munch and wouldn’t even be hear to tell you about it.

scale

Gator Walk

Sue’s alligator,
dreamt that he ate her,
while strolling along on his leash.

To fill up his gizzard,
the oversized lizard,
decided he’d rather eat quiche.

Illustration Friday.

mad as a wet hen

A month or so ago, I thought it would be a super cool idea to do a children’s book, illustrating animal idioms, like “The Bee’s Knees”, “When Pigs Fly”, “Happy as a Clam”, etc.

Well, as it turns out, it’s been done. At least a half dozen times. Maybe a million. Not sure. But a lot.

Whatever. It’s a cool idea.

So I scrawled out a very angry wet hen at lunch. Might not be the most original idea, but it was fun illustrating such a fowl mood. Get it? Fowl mood….(sigh).

Afterwards, I searched around online and found there were quite a few ideas on the origin of the phrase “mad as a wet hen”. One of the more interesting explanations was from a woman, who grew up on a farm in the south, who explains that after a hen lays her eggs, she’s all about sitting on them until they hatch. Even if you gather up all her eggs, she will still sit on the empty nest. So in order to “break her” and get her laying more eggs, the farmer would lift her off the nest and dunk her in water. She’d then go right back to her nest, so it had to be done two or three times, after which she’d be mad as hell and start “fussing and scrambling about”. But apparently this “broke her” and she’d start laying eggs again.

Truth be told, that story made me a feel bad for the poor hen. I was under the impression that the saying was more about chickens not having much of a sense of humor when they get squirted with prank corsages.

At any rate, I think I might do some more of these idiom drawings. Stay tuned.

gridlock raises my vamp-ire

Commute to work this morning (notice the gridlock from back window).

In keeping with the day, I wrote a little children’s rhyme about vampires. It goes a little something like this:

VAMPIRE

I was craving garlic pizza,
so I grabbed my trusty bike,
and peddled off to Lou’s Place,
where they have the kind I like.

Rushing home, my luck turned sour.
I blew out my front tire.
As I stopped to check it out
I saw my first vampire.

He snuck out from the shadows
of the jacaranda tree,
and hovered just above the ground
while making eyes at me.

He smiled at me with sneery lips,
and stared his vampire stare.
Then floated over to me.
Man he gave me such a scare!

I pretended not to notice,
that his eyes were glowing red.
But he knew that I was frightened.
You can’t fool the dang un-dead.

I figured I was done for
as he flashed his gleaming fangs.
Then I got this great idea
when I felt some hunger pangs.

Remembering I bought some
garlic pizza from Lou’s Place,
I grabbed it from my bike rack
and I shoved it in his face!

The vampire’s eyes shot open!
Oh he croaked just like a toad!
My trusty garlic pizza
caused the vampire to explode!