Headbanging!

My family is awesome. The other day we were all sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner. The radio was on and Nightmare, by Avenged Sevenfold started playing. At exactly the same time, about 30 seconds into the song when the guitars and drums start, everyone at the table started headbanging in unison. It was classic!

It's nice that we all share similar tastes in music!


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You Can Never Have Too Many Shoes

Here are the latest shoes I painted for Sweet Pea. This is Nyan Cat. According to Wikipedia,  Nyan Cat is the name of a YouTube video...which became an Internet meme. Nyan Cat has a Pop-Tart body and he flies through space leaving a rainbow trail. Apparently the video ranked at number 5 on the list of most viewed YouTube videos in 2011. You couldn't prove it by me. The only reason I'm aware of Nyan Cat is because Sweet Pea is a fan. But he is cute!

These shoes started out hot pink, but Sweet Pea isn't into pink so much anymore, so I covered all the pink. With some rainbow shoelaces, these are perfect!

 

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Our Pal Fred

This is Fred.
 

Sorry to shock you like that, but I wanted to share. I only posted one of the two pictures though. You're welcome.

Fred lives in the basement. And I suppose in the grand scheme of things - in a world full of scary, dangerous, deadly things, Fred is small potatoes. But when it comes to critters living in my house, he's still larger than I like. Way smaller than a mouse, sure, but no where near as cute.

Sweet Pea thinks I'm out of my mind because I've named him. She just wants him gone. But he's lived behind the freezer for at least a year now, if not longer. He doesn't move around. He doesn't creep up behind me. He's never bitten me. I think he's probably eaten other yucky things that have crossed his path. All in all, he's not so bad. He didn't even twitch or complain in the least when I took his picture (I drew the line at taking a selfie of us).

And what alternatives do I have really? I have three options -
1. Leave him be
2. Squish him
3. Move him

Moving him would require catching him and touching him. Nuh-uh!

Squishing him would involve those awful bug-crunching noises and spider screams. [shudder] And possibly chasing him down which may involve biting and spider-revenge if he gets away.

So leaving him be is really the best option. If he was wandering around the basement and surprising me by walking across the counter or my toothbrush or something, that would be different. But since he's not I say live and let live.

I'm  not sure I should have taken his picture though. He looks much more menacing in these pictures - I can see his eyes and every joint in his many legs and his shiny pelt :)  [shudder again]

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Bundercorn or Uni-Bun?

And while we're on the topic of Bunderfluff, I will bore you with one more rabbit-related post.

When we first got Bunderfluff from the State Fair we suspected he had had a hair cut - a little trimming of the head fur to make him show-worthy. And yes, our suspicions have been confirmed. Now that his hair has grown out we discovered that he has quite a spectacular and entertaining fuzz-horn:

Normally it doesn't stick straight up like this but I think it would be neglectful to not style it and take photos. Now we just need to get out the hair fur gel.

And we still haven't decided if he's a uni-bun, or a Bundercorn.

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The Bun

  And without further ado,

    This
         Is
        
          BunderFluff Nibblenubbins!

 

He's a funny, sweet, little bunny!

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An Oldie, But a Goodie

I did this one quite a while ago but I've always liked it. The reflections on the glass are a bit distracting and the glass is a bit spattered with paint right now that I was too lazy to clean, but you get the idea. If I ever re-do this there are a few things I'd do differently, but overall I'm very happy with it.

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Bird on a Ball

  Sorry for the poor photography, but here's another little bird - gotta love 'em:

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A Bit of Fun

A bit of fun from my sketchbook:

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Fun With Color

When it comes to watercolor, this one is more my style - free, easy, just some splashes of color. You can come up with some interesting things.It's not anything in particular, just some fun with color.

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A Bit of Tea?

OK, this one didn't quite come out like I wanted, then I lost patience with it. I like the idea, but the final result wasn't exactly like I had pictured it in my head. Watercolor can be difficult to deal with sometimes. Maybe I'll try again with crayons.

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Bird On a Hot Lamp Wire

I'm very fond of birds. They often show up in my artwork. Like this one:

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The Spider and the Blue Jay - a Short Story

  Once upon a time there was a spider. He was large garden spider. He had a beautiful web stretching between a hanging planter and the side of a suburban house. He was a busy spider, catching and wrapping up meals whenever he had a chance. He never bothered anyone, kept to himself, was very quiet and ate bothersome pests. And his web, when covered in morning dew, was a wonder to behold.

One day, a raucous blue jay spied the garden spider. "Oh look," he said. "A spider." The blue jay swooped down in a glorious flash of blue and white and landed on the planter hook. He cocked his head this way and that, regarding the spider who was tucked neatly beneath the hook.

Then, without a word of regret or apology, the blue jay plucked the spider from his hiding spot and carried him off.

The End


I like to think he thought the spider looked like the friendly sort and took him to his nest to play. I refuse to consider any other alternative.

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So Easy Even a Caveman Could Do It - Or Could He?

And here's some awesome art created by one of the ducklings - Snickers made an awesome Caveman sculpture:
 

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Expirimenting

An expiriment with old scraps of paper, bits of metal, this and that:

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Fido! Fluffy!

OK, so the other day I told you about Bunderfluff Nibblenubbins. And to continue that rambling train of thought . . .

One of the most awesome parts about having a pet with a ridiculously long and hilarious name like Bunderfluff Nibblenubbins is bringing him to the vet. Not because I like the vet, or the money it costs to visit the vet, but for an entirely different, if somewhat selfish reason. It may actually be worth bringing him in for regular checkups just I can sit in the waiting room and hear them call out 'Bunderfluff Nibblenubbins?'

Much better than Fido or Fluffy!

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Bunderfluff Nibblenubbins

We are now the  proud owners of a rabbit. Yes, a rabbit. A Jersey Wooly to be exact. His coloring is agouti, which is just a fancy way of saying 'regular yard rabbit color'. But really, agouti sounds so much nicer, doesn't it? It makes me want to  put my pinky in the air, like this:

And really, saying that he's agouti, or yard rabbit color, isn't quite accurate either. Because, well, I've never seen a yard bunny that's quite this fluffy and cute. He's a little ball of angora fuzz. Which sounds nice, but it tends to turn from fuzz into hard little nubbins of tangled, matted, congealed fur around the back-end and armpits. (You didn't know rabbits had armpits, did you?)

And, (stream of consciousness here) when I say he's a little ball of angora fuzz that makes him sound like a sweetie, doesn't it? Well, let's just say that he's a teenage boy bunny. That should give you a clue to his personality (and get me somewhat prepared for my own male ducklings imminent rise to teenage-ness). And by stating that he's a teenage boy bunny I mean he has aggressive tendencies. And can be quite mischievous. And doesn't like to be corrected. And gets very territorial. And is very very possessive of his food. And does sometimes like to be scratched behind the ears. And has strong back legs and sharp claws.

But there is a cure for all the wickedness. We could get him neutered. That's supposed to cut down on all those aggressive, boy-bunny things that he so loves to do right now. So why haven't we done that? Because holy bunny-crap - it's expensive! I could get 25 rabbits for the cost of getting this one neutered. For that matter, I could get one girl bunny and make a whole army of bunnies and save ourselves hundreds of dollars. Wait, no, that's not the point. In any case, I can't justify the cost. I need to do some comparison shopping - get a second opinion. Or just deal with it. Sometimes he's nice.

But, from what I've read, once he gets past his teenage phase, he should calm down a little bit. I hope so - I don't like being afraid of a 2.5 lb ball of fluff that's confined to a cage. It's like a scene from Monty Python - that little bunny has BIG SHARP POINTY teeth! But really, he's not that bad. The only time I really need to be careful is when I fill his bowl with bunny-crunchies. He has a tendency to attack - thinking I'm stealing his food no doubt. (Mine! My food! Rawr!)

Oh, and most important of all (and if you've made it this far I commend you on your ability to put up with rambling) is his name. What did we name this little ball of wonder-fluff?

Bunderfluff Nibblenubbins!

The perfect name if I do say so myself.


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The Coolest Tree Ever

Isn't this the coolest tree ever?

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Frogs, Dragons, Aliens and Katydids

Here are some pictures from a summer trip to a local nature center:

Staring at the lily pads I said: "You know, I've never seen a frog on a lily pad." . . . "Hey! There's a frog! On a lily pad!"

And yes, there he is:

And a lovely dragonfly, thinking about getting a drink:

 

 And some sort of cool, alien plant:

A wild rose:

And a nice little buggie (katydid) that spent a little time with us:

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Philadelphia

  Here are a few pictures from our trip to Philadelphia. Some cool architecture:

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Shrews, Anteaters and Ducks

We had a family trip this summer that included a visit to the Philadelphia Zoo. I must say I was a bit worried when we first got there and saw the sculpture outside the front of the zoo that depicted a grizzly scene involving a dead lion with an arrow through it. There were other similarly violent sculptures throughout the zoo, along with some more standard, peaceful sculptures. I have no idea why they have those strange sculptures, but other than that, we had a great time. It was a beautiful day! Here's a few pictures from the trip:

Not the best picture, but the elephant shrews were by far the cutest, most entertaining animals of the day. We all loved these little guys! I want one!

I've always thought I liked anteaters, but I have to say these guys were a bit, um, yucky. They have much less hair than I thought and really resemble pigs quite a bit. Still, cute, but not quite what I was expecting. I must have watched too much Pink Panther growing up or something.

And we manage to find ducks wherever we go. We love ducks!

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Monarch Mozaic

I had so much fun with my butterfly book that I'm doing another. A monarch mozaic book this time. Here's the work in progress:

What a mess, right? That's how I work - everything spread out, bits and pieces everywhere - perfect!

I'll post some pics when it's complete.

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Mini-Music

And yet another mini-book - no eggshells with this one. The cover is a cut-up record album (remember those?) with some sheet music pages and some blank pages.

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