at home

At Home

How do you make a nervous sea turtle feel at home?

You rub under his little chin until he calms down. Works every time.

Of course he is happiest when he is back in the water with his buds. Righteous...

I went to the Turtle Farm on Grand Cayman Islands recently. You think baby turtles are cute? No, you have to see them in person to grasp the full power of their cuteness, you will be rendered helpless!

(The image is a rubber stamp I made for my daughter's birthday a few years ago. I printed them and hung them with raffia and blue streamers. There was a birthday cake that involved vanilla wafer sand and chocolate turtles returning to the ocean!)

at home

Home... where it's a safe place to make your fashion statement.

At-home inspiration

Here is a little of my at-home inspiration -- my girl Daisy!

At home

I feel most at home with a pair of scissors and felt but I am trying my hand at digital art. I am having so much fun, I can't even begin to tell you. I love the freedom and am more inspired than I've been in a long while. This was created using a sketch from one of my dummy books.

Click to enlarge

At Home

I was sitting in my living room thinking what should I post for this week's theme, when I saw Ramona...

I made Ramona a few years ago out of polymer clay. She lives in a house all by herself and loves to read. You can see her tiny opened book on her sofa. :o)

Whenever I see her, she makes me feel at home. I love my home, it is my favorite place to be, with my kids, my hubby, my garden, my pets and my watercolors. What more could I ask for?

I also want to thank the PBJunkies for making me feel right at home!

Home Away From Home

I just spent a weekend at a writer's retreat led by Jane Yolen and I have to say that you are never more at home than when you are with authors and illustrators who know exactly what you are going through and where you are coming from!

Bad grammar, plot problems, verb tense phobia, and insecurities about submitting were all issues that kept me from feeling like a "real" writer. I can't tell you the relief I felt to hear some of these accomplished writers share the same struggles.

So now that I'm home again, I'm going through those memories like little treasures and ready to get to work!

Home is Where the Pets Are

at home

Kitty At Home... Drinking Coffee

This is a vignette that is part of a larger illustration which I created for a greeting card.

The larger greeting card image is below. Yes, it is a bit on the quirky side...but what can I say!? You would think I LOVE coffee!! Up until recently, I did (and a lifer, at that - -albeit decaf for the past ten years or so).

Believe it or not, I recently quit drinking coffee. It was not a decision based on a conscious effort to give it up, but rather, my biology made the decision for me -- I simply (and strangely!) lost the taste for it. This outrageous, otherworldly happenstance occured right before I was officially diagnosed with hypothyroidism, so I can't help but assume that my new direction has something to do with physical chemistry. Who really knows... but I *can* tell you this: I have since been avidly rediscovering the wonderful world of TEA! :)

(please click to enlarge)

HOME

Home is where the heart is.
Or in this case, wherever your wooly lamb is.

From a Dummybook I'm working on.

Weekly Theme: "At Home"

For the next few weeks, I'm illustrating a book for Free Spirit Press. The story follows the same little boy all the way through, so I'm working hard on keeping his look consistent. This is my dining table at the moment--15 spreads, all scattered around. I don't normally like to work in this "assembly line" fashion, but he is the central focus, there are no clothing changes, and he's got to look identical from page to page.

As my son would say, "what a mess"!