Last gasp in Mike's

Everyone cheered to watch racers run
"final?"
by me, Mary Stebbins Taitt

I am finally finished with Mike's Moleskine, and will mail it ASAP on hopefully Monday or Tuesday.
*The paper is getting progressively thicker!  Below is the prior version.  Since then I have repaired the head of the last wolf, opened Frankie's eyes, changed the color of the grass and added detail.  This was the hold-up. I kept fiddling with it, trying to get it right.

"Had Races and Won"

Acrylic on thin Moleskine paper*

4th coat

Because I had it so long, I did some additional pieces:

Biker Buddy
by Mary Taitt

At the end of a long day
By Mary Taitt
markers, Copic, Faber-Castell pigment artist pigment markers,

The Nature Conservancy wants to publish 20,000 elephant pictures, so I am trying to help them out.

Old Bull
collab for Mike

And a new pocket item--with elephants:

Dusk
card by Mary Taitt for Mike's pocket

Pocket item for Mike: Block print card

Dining Out
A Block print card for Mike by Mary

I worked on this for three weeks--Duh, couldn't get it right.  I wanted to make Mike a block print because I like his highly graphic work and I wanted to give him something that honored that. I would do it over, because it isn't quite right, but I think it's time to finish up and send this on home.

Final Spoonbill/Duckbill Plus Envelope Plus in-the-pocket

Spoonbill, Hornbill and Duckbill
Acrylic, by Mary Stebbins Taitt
Click on this or any image to view all of them larger

Spoonbill and Duckbill
with their friend Hornbill
Rode a red wagon downhill
with glorious freewill
past the sawmill
and came to a standstill
at Frankie's doorsill.

 Frankie is my grandson.  One of four.

I can't find the paper with the "poem" on it, and I'm not sure I'm remembering it right.

I forgot to mention that my over-enthusiastic painting damaged the thin paper and I had to apply two patches.  If you click on the upper picture to make it bigger, you can see the patches at the top left on a smaller patch just left of center at the top--sorry about that.  :-(

I am working on removing the gutter between the pages
for my book for Frankie.
and tweaking it
(not quite done yet.)

Roseate Spoonbills envelope
acrylic, Mary Stebbins Taitt

Pumice Fish
Acrylic, Mary Stebbins Taitt

I never went to art school, so I have to learn everything by experimenting.  I bought some pumice medium and played with it on the envelope for the first time ever (dumb, I know).  It was so rough, like sandpaper,only worse, so, worried about the mail carriers and postal employees injuring their fingers, I put a couple layers of matte medium over it, but that made it look dull.   :-(  It has lots of texture!  But less than before. (I also used a tiny but of the pumice medium on the rocks and on the road in the Spoonbill hornbill duckbill painting.)

In the Pocket:

Twin Poppies
oil on Graham Cracker box treated with acrylics
Mary Stebbisn Taitt

Flute Practice
oil and Arches Oil Paper
Mary Stebbins Taitt

Flute practice, side view
showing topography of oils

Mike, take the oils out and let them dry some more.  I hope they survive the journey to your house!!!

Cassandra Elise Lapwing revisited yet again (I'm probably still working on this):

Mike's Mole Almost ready to ship to Ammon

Hard times have hit--we had two floods. Photos, manuscripts, artwork, clothes, sleeping bags etc all got soaked. The house is chaotic with stuff spread out drying and boxed hauled up from the cellar. It will be long time before we get dug out. I had wanted to do some work on my kids books in Mike's mole, but the prep time was prohibitive.

1)Leopard. Faber-Caselle PITT astist pigment pens and PRANG metallics--the Prang pens ran out of ink, I bought more, they were a different color, I bought more--they were dry AND a different color--so I had to go with it--apologies. What do you do when the pen you start with runs out of ink in someone else's mole and you can't replace it? AK!! :-(

2)Impala, prey of the leopard--I pity them both face to face for the lifetime of the mole. One terrified and the other hungry but thwarted. Faber-Caselle PITT astist pigment pens and PRANG metallics

3)Pocket items, iPad Artrage painting print 4 x 6--I had to rescan the print because nothing was working that day!

4)pocket item #2--eagle skull. Just finished today. iPad Artrage painting print 4 x 6

5)Our living room at the house where we live--the studio house flooded too.

We are leaving for a short trip Thursday 6/16.

Click images to enlarge.

Blood from a Stone, pocket items

The first one is a sort of continued collaboration with Steve Loya. I loved his splotch monster so much, that is, my version of it, posted here, that I made a second one with the Virginia character on the top, turned the other way. I gave her a whip and a flower. The painting is water color and unfortunately, I made it way too big to fit in a pocket, so I made two small prints, one for Mike, and one for Roma.

The second one is for mike, for his pocket, in his round 2 mole.

I have two moles at my house now, Roma's round 3 and Mike's from round 2. I am currently working on a piece in Roma's which I had hoped to finish last night but was thwarted by my own slowness. Click images to view larger.