I was cleaning out my studio and thought it was time to list this painting
I did a few years back. After a while I start to feel a little guilty about
holding on to images, particularly when I have no where near enough wall space
to properly enjoy them all. So this fairy with her assertive attitude was telling
me that she had had enough of being packed safely in a dark closet. She wanted
out.

So she's on Ebay
right now. Auction ends March 17th , Saint Patrick's day ;)

Finally cut my hair last Saturday!! I'd been growing it out for what felt like
FOREVER so I could donate it to Locks
of Love

It was while I was illustrating Mary
Kyle Douglas' charming story "Clara's Gift from the Heart" that
I became inspired to donate my hair. Unfortunately, it was kind of short at
the time so it took a few years to grow it long enough (donation of at least
10") So I waited, while it grew and grew, and heard lots of wonderful stories
(while selling this book at craft fairs) from other kids and women who have
given their hair to this worthy cause.

Eventually my braided hair got so long that it started dipping itself in
my paint palette, and wrapping itself around my neck while I slept like a
scarf or scarier, reminding me of a noose (!). It was OK for awhile
(I was curious how long I COULD grow my hair) but
suddenly Saturday morning it'd just wrapped itself around my neck 1 time too many!!

Here is a picture of the book, still available at Amazon
(note there isn't a picture, but if you look under the empty box, I loaded a
customer pic up)

Here are the Before and After photos (I kind of forgot to take a before photo
as I was in a hurry to chop it off, so this is obviously from last Halloween)

And the donated hair (I cut off 11" yea!):

Went on a Photo Safari today! Walked around the Presidio
taking pictures for my reference image folder. Maybe I'll improve my photo
skills (highly doubt it but I'll try)

Here are a few I liked:

they've built this strange spire thing at Inspiration point, Presidio,
no sign saying why, just appeared one day, wierd.

The Friendly cat that ran up to me while I was taking flower pictures
:) Kept running away when cars passed by, smart kitty, and then would
come back to be petted more. That's something I like about when I go on
a photo hunt, you never know what you'll find.

Back at home: Toby sniffing all the fur I groomed off him, poor bunny,
he's just started another shedding, maybe because the weather's a little
warmer again? Makes him hungrier than normal; it's hard to be so soft
and fuzzy.

Anyway, that's my adventure for the day.

Here you go Jade!
and also for anyone interested in making a pencil
case/ pencil easel thingy:

Here's a picture again of how it turned out. I'm still working on an
idea for an outer zippered case for this all to fit into, but for right
now, I'm very happy with how the pencil holding part came out, it's really
nice to be able to prop up my pencils when I'm working so I can view all
of the colors and pick out what I need. Before I had the pencils in a cup
with cardboard dividers which worked well until the pencils
got really small. So I'd take them out and have groups on my desk while I worked,
only then they'd roll around and drive me crazy!

Here is the diagram/hand written directions, click HERE
to view because the picture is kind of big.

A little fairy bunny to keep me company
while I work, she came to my mind in mid January, so I tore up an old purple
sweater, drew out a pattern of what I wanted her to look like, and got sewing.
It took me back to when I was a kid making up my own designs for stuffed animals
(I couldn't have enough, and my Mom didn't mind me sewing, so I made a ton)
I really like how her feet tend to flop inward pigeon toed, my feet sometimes
do that too despite all the soccer and ballet lessons I took to train my feet
to have a proper "turnout".

I'm also rather happy with how my color
pencil holder turned out. Just finished it last Sunday. Lately, I've been experimenting
mixing in color pencils with my acrylic paint. Not novel or a new idea by any
means, I've heard of it many times before, but I never really have tried it
much, and it's been fun experimenting/seeing how it works.

Here's a little study I did using color
pencils ontop of acrylic washes.