Rock the Cats-Bah!

I just finished designing this invitation for the Paws L.A. "Pet Art 9" Pet Art Auction Event...their theme: "Rock the Cats-bah". The event is in November and raises money for programs to keep financially or physically debilitated people and their animal companions together, a wonderful cause and so important for both the pets and their guardians. (And yes, I've had the Clash's

"Rock the Casbah" running through my head for the last 3 days!)

08.18.07

Have not painted in quite some time, but I continue to fill my sketch book on a somewhat daily basis. My goal is one page per day but as you can see here, the 17th & 18th ended up on one page and at times if life is really crazy I'll have up to a week of dates on one page but alas every day accounted for. So I'll try to share more sketchbook during my 'dry spells' = no wet paint.

I have also been sketching a lot digitally on my Cintiq doing prep work for pet portraits, design work for licensing and (all day today) working on illustrations for the Paws LA Pet ARt 9 invitation and a poster for Chicago Animal Care & Control's Fall Adoption Event.

Hopefully I'll be ready to paint tomorrow as I have several commissions to start - that's also about the time new things develop down in my studio. Yesterday I primed a whole new slew of wood cabinet doors so I am excited to slather some GOLDEN acrylics onto them as well. It's hard to remember that I need incubation time before I actually produce, because when I do produce it's usually a lot at one time. Instead I tend to just beat myself up for not painting often enough.

Emergency!

Illustration Friday

Theme = EMERGENCY

Today I digitally colored this drawing from my sketchbook created on August 15, 2001-I guess it's fitting that it's August 15th today as well. There was a fire in our neighborhood, a little girl went racing down our street on her bike yelling "Fire Fire Everywhere - Armitage & Milwaukee!" of course we had to go check it out,we met lots of other interesting late night spectators...lots of dogs too. There was not 'fire, fire everywhere' - just one building, but fairly large and the intersection of Western, Milwaukee and Armitage was blocked off so it was a big deal.

Transformations...

My Mom is coming to visit today from Wisconsin! She has never seen our house so it was good incentive for me to get some things done on my LIST over the weekend. Since moving in last fall I've had grand dreams of a beautiful deck filled with flowers and color, there has not been time for that so I came up with a quick fix over the weekend. I painted our $12 plastic adirondack deck chairs with Krylon Fusion Blue Hyacinth Spray Paint - not my favorite way to paint but the results were totally worth it. I had to go to the suburbs to get the paint - (no spray paint sold in Chicago city limits due to graffiti ordinance) and this color was hard to find as well. Ace Hardware in Glenview came through - what a great store, I also found some seat cushions for the chairs in the summer clearance section. I love a bargain...!

I picked up this kitchen table at a yard sale a few weeks back with plans to cut the legs and mosaic it for a deck coffee table. Couldn't find the tile I wanted - it's all glass these days and my glass  was not as thick as my tile, I'll have to postpone that part. Quick fix with the Krylon paint.

Also mulched the front yard, and pulled lots of weeds..I'm still learning what is and isn't a weed and in the backyard Rich & I have decided to let the indigenous riff raff grow in specific section - paying homage to the prarie plants...or those that think they are! I won't go into my caulking expedition in the bathroom, lets just say it was another BIG job - and I'm definitely not a pro but it does look better. Okay...off to the train station to pick up Mom & Bill!

International Exposure!

My painting Spring Has Sprung was featured in VIVA Magazine in Dubaie in the United Arab Emirates! The feature was in their July 2007 issue, it showcased events in cities around the world, and Chicago made it in for the Magnificent Mile Art where I exhibited. Unfortunately the description didn't quite match the event, but I received some great exposure nonetheless.

And in Germany on TV at the end of July, my Pet Portraits were featured in a story about The Dogs Gallery on the RTL Regional Television News (Europe's biggest TV Station, or so they told me!).

On a more local note, my Field Sculpture was featured on the photo blog called "The Farmer's Wife". The Farmers Wife was the Recipient of the 2006 Garfield Heritage Society Agricultural Preservation Award. Thanks for featuring my field, Zanne!

Plaster Cat

The other day, Ollie from Treehouse Animal Foundation delivered a plaster cat for me to paint for their fundraiser coming up in the fall. This one is much more realistic than last year's larger than life feline.I'm not sure how I'm going to paint it... the other one was allflowers, I called it "Botani-cat". Alice was a bit more curious aboutthis kitty than Izzy, she loves cats and misses Oliver, we all do - it'll be a year on Monday since he left us.               

Moon

Illustration Friday Theme = Moon

This is one of my "Night Flyer" paintings,inspired by dreams of flying. Have not done one of these in a while, not since moving from Bucktown, where the neighborhood and architecture also inspired these images. It's also been quite some time since I've had a flying dream - they are amazing. The last one that I can remember, I was flying around inside a room and could use my feet to springboard off the walls and sail into the air bouncing off the other walls. I would still love to do an illustrated book of people's flying dreams some day. I have submissions from dreamers in many locations including Australia. My favorite was from a local Chicagoan who told me that when she flew she had to watch out for power lines - then went on to share that she worked for ComEd for 20 years!

The Art of Shoes and more...

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Is it art? Rich did his bi-annual Chuck Taylor wash over the weekend...I watched him arrange these on the railing to dry, looks like art to me. After this, I met him in the garage where we were long overdue to clean, organize and go through the boxes still sitting there from our move 9 months ago. A good portion of them were all the ceramic figures I made at Lill Street back in the 90's and a few bronze pieces I made in college. Most of the clay figures are missing fingers and have various other cracks and imperfections but I'm not quite ready to part with them. Rich wants me to plant them in the garden or around the yard, for now I was able to put the majority of them on a bookshelf in the garage...Oh, I did put two in the yard..I'll post those at a later date. Izzy & Alice snoozed in the summer breeze on the deck all afternoon.