Mike's book is on the way home!

This bottom image is my final collab for Mike and I am pretty sad about it.  :(

Elephant Fish Watercolor (What?)

Finally! Roma's Moleskine is on its way home... As the last artist - I wanted to play around in another medium and have some fun. Thus! The Elephant fish. I was recently surfing in South Padre island and had hoped for some fresh seafood, but all the places were "We cook your catch." I didn't catch anything, but waves - so I went hungry for some fresh fish and ate mexican.

pages 2 and 3 in Molly's book

 This took all day... and I mean all day... I didn't do anything else today, but it was fun and it's been a long time since I dedicated so many hours straight to drawing.

 I'm very happy with how this came out, though it doesn't capture the awesomeness of the original photo.

First page with Ammon in Moly's book

I don't know if you are all following Molly's Flickr or Tumblr, if you do, you know that aside of being an amazing painter, she is also an amazing photographer. I'm keep being super impressed with her ongoing series of self portraits, and how she keeps coming out with great original ideas of showing different sides of her personality in her images.

So, I decided to dedicate my work in her book to some of those portraits. This is the first page with Ammon, and Molly is hiding somewhere in there, in the flowers.

Molly's book

And ice coffee.

Question

Hay everyone! finally I have a book! i just got Molly's from Ammon, and very excited about starting to work in it.

 So here is my question. Molly is next in line, but looking at the Google Doc, it looks like her book never made it to Mary or Roma. Shell I send it to Roma? to Mary or to Molly?

Ballookey in Andrea's

Hey there!

I sent Andrea's off today. I'm not quite done with the Exchange as I still have to finish my work in Mary's book - it looks like according to the spreadsheet it's nearly done, so either the last person to have it or Mary can send it to me.

I really loved the illustrations Aya did in Andrea's, taken from dreams or nightmares, so I continued along with that idea.

But first some birds to get warmed up: Collaboration with Molly-



From a recurring dream about driving off the map - first the map gets weird, then it runs out... I like the top portion, but the weirdness and map-ness didn't really work out so great on the second half. For the car, I was inspired by the illustrations in Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, of the kid Milo in a toy car.



A complicated dream, full of weirdness, reduced to just a couple of elements. Walking down a sidewalk at night, and it gets darker, and darker, and darker (and a little scary) until nothing is visible in the vicinity of the sidewalk. Coming out the other side of the darkness, the right side of the path falls off into open space.



And the beginning of a collaboration with Andrea. I may or may not have been watching the Late Late show with Craig Ferguson when sketching this. OK, yes, I was.

Ammon In Molly's Book

To share with Aya.

The great shared effort.

When you lose your body it is best to see the positive things. 

Johnny Cash

I have  been watching past episodes of "Breaking Bad" so here are a few meth heads.

The Nude.

Collab w/ Ballookey in Mike's book

Ballookey did the pencil and I did the black & red.

Lost and Found

My first pages in Mike's book via Instagram.

Ballookey in Mike's Book

Gosh! Sooo sorry for the delay in posting these. I sent Mike's book out a few weeks ago, but after about 5 days, it came back to me without the envelope, in a plastic bag from the Post Office. There was just a fragment of the original envelope left, with enough of my address intact that they returned it to me. So I guess Mike's book had a little detour through harrowing times, but it's safe & sound.

I've had these photos on my phone for ages, but my job gets super busy around certain sporting events, and when those sporting events involve our home team, the Los Angeles Kings - as you can imagine, it gets busier still. Anyway...finally finding myself on the receiving end of some free time to get caught up.

Some Koi I've been fiddling with. Drawn them a few times, this is my favorite so far:



This isn't so much of a grand idea, but when I got Mike's book, I determined to draw whatever was going on right then. We give a little food to this friendly feral cat I nicknamed Oscar. Oscar went through a rough patch several weeks ago when some female bluejays started taking his nibbles. They would screech at him, and if he didn't move off, they'd dive bomb him until he left his dish and they'd eat his food! I put his dish under one of the patio chairs, and that helped. For about one day. Then I saw one of the jays side-bombing him and I finally had to stand guard so the poor guy could eat. After that I started tossing bluejay feed on the roof of our garage so they'd leave him alone. Now I hear them fighting with the squirrels, but that's the squirrels' damn problem.



We went to the Los Angeles Arboretum several weeks ago during a large garden sale. Of course I was totally obsessed with photographing the peacocks as if I haven't seen them before. ;) While I was crouched down, waiting for one to come out from behind a small tree, it seemed to freak out. I couldn't see the whole thing, but it was beating it's wings and I wondered if it had gotten stuck on something. Then, it calmed down, but kept poking it's head around the tree like it was playing peek-a-boo with me. I couldn't figure it out. I finally decided the peacock probably wasn't going to come my way because it didn't like the way I was low to the ground, so I got up and attempted to nonchalantly edge to the other side to get a better shot. It was then that I saw there was a large garden mirror propped up on the other side of the tree and the peacock was having a very strenuous argument with it's reflection. He kept poking his head around the tree because he was trying to find the peacock in the mirror.



Beginning of collaboration with Andrea. I know she usually uses markers or pens, and I like using heavier lines myself, but as I started drawing this, I left it in pencil form to see what she would add to it. :)



My contribution to Molly's page:



See you soon - I'm almost done with Andrea's book and I'm eager to show the theme I worked in. :)

painting in Ellen's Moleskine at the Pinery

while camping in Ontario, Canada.

Mary in Ellen for Ammon: Latvia Sidewalk Cafe #1

Pen and ink with watercolor and watercolor pencils. This is my last
one in Ellens and I have a pocket item, so I will be mailing ASAP, but
maybe not tomorrow, as I have an appointment for an MRI of the brain
that is supposed to take some time.

Mary in Ellen's: Old City Jerusalem

I did these while camping at the Pinery in Ontario, Canada.  I was hoping to finish the book up there, but we had too much rain--and you can't paint in the rain.  (I can't, anyway.)  The first two are in Ellen's Moleskine and the the third is in my own sketchbook--I painted it with leftover paint from the other two. I'm including it as a peak into our life in the dunes up there.  I have one more piece to do, the half collab for Ammon.

I like to participate in the Virtual Paintout sometimes, where you go to the monthly chosen city and paint something visible from google maps street  views, as if you were at a real paintout.  Interestingly, in Jerusalem, the old-city srtreet views include scenes inside the bazaar, which is what I painted in Ellen's Moleskine.  It was strange painting these dark scenes in the brilliant sun of the dunes of the Pinery.

Jerusalem Old-City Bazaar #1
"Caught"
in Ellen's
acrylic

Jerusalem Old-City Bazaar #2
"Alcove"
in Ellen's
acrylic

"Reading in the Dunes"
Biker Buddy relaxes
(This is in  my own sketchbook)
acrylic

Mary in Ellen's: Lone Tree

"Lone Tree"
water-soluble oil pastels and acrylics

"Lone Tree"
water soluble oil pastels

My trip to Syracuse came to a sudden, early, and precipitous end. The
car made terrible grinding sounds and the ball joint holding the front
driver's side wheel broke. Luckily, it did not happen while going 70
on the highway. While waiting for my husband to arrive after driving
400 miles to rescue me, I sat on my daighter's lawn and drew the tree
across the street in Ellen's mole with water soluble oil pastels.

I wasn't totally happy with the results and last night, I painted over
it with acrylics. (Of course I am never totally happy, but I am
happier.)

We are leaving on yet another trip this morning. This time to camp at
the Pinery in Ontario, Canada. Wish me better luck on this
trip--we're taking my husband's car--mine got hauled to the scrap yard
(I cried.)

The tree I drew/painted is in the bottom photo, but I didn't have it to look at when I painted it.  In the pastels version, there are white spots at the corners where I taped it to the easel, because it was VERY WINDY!

Mary in Ellen's: Poised to Strike

green frog
"Poised to Strike"
acrylic on paper
by Mary Stebbins Taitt

There seems to be a bit of a frog theme early on, so I decided to do a frog (acrylic.)

Gretchen and Mary in Ellen's: Wind

"Wind"
Collab with Gretchen and Mary
in Ellen's Mole

The half collab left for me by Gretchen reminded me of blowing hair.  When we visited Slovenia, many women (and men) had hennaed hair.

Roma's Moleskine - Almost done!

No Moleys in sight...

I don't know about everyone else...but I sure am feeling left out!

Mary in Aya's: half collab for Gretchen and pocket item

Sakura pens

Benny and the Xenotarsosaurus, Benny and the hyenas,
Benny and the Skunk, Benny and the Crocodile.
3 in acrylic andone Artrage digital painting.
For Aya's packet,
because all my main 4 pix for her are from (for) this book.

Okay, this completes my visit with the lovely Aya and her lovely Moleskine and I will be mailing it to Gretchen as soon as I can.