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A mysterious thing happened the other day - drops of water starting falling from the sky, soaking into the ground and forming puddles on the streets. I thought - I remember something like this from long, long ago. I think it's called "rain." And rain it did - for the first time in I can't remember how long. I had to walk to pick up my take-out dinner from a nearby restaurant and in order to get there had to cross a section of the LA River. Usually the water meanders slowly, finding its course around patches of mud and plant life, but Friday evening the water was rushing like I'd never seen. It was a strange sensation standing on the bridge, watching the water rushing out from under. And later that evening I even heard some thunder, which clapped loudly enough to set off several car alarms. I think I've only heard thunder maybe three times in these six years that we've lived in LA. Being a California native himself and very much unaccustomed to any weather other than sunny, the cat did not like any of this at all...

So after setting it aside in great frustration sometime ago, I picked up "The Woodland Post" again and finished it off:
This one was a bitter battle to the end - a good deal of repainting elements that just weren't working. I think part of the problem I had initially was that I fell in love with the color of the sloppy digital color-study I painted for it, knowing full well that I can't possibly reproduce the exact color from the study in a traditional medium. I'm pretty content with the color overall, but there are all kinds of other problems with it. For example, the rather ambiguous lighting and I've never been happy with the leaves on the trees. Regardless, it's a personal piece that I'm ready to be done with - I need to move on to something else! Well, for those that are interested, there are prints at my Shop.

Her wit and humor, as well as her quirky characters and graceful writing, are only a few of the reasons why Sarah Weeks' picture books and novels have found such a wide audience since she began writing children's books in the early 1990's. Weeks, a singer and songwriter as well as a children's author, has written more than thirty picture books and eleven novels, including her popular middle

We got the verdict from our insurance company by the end of last week, and 'Sophia,' our Jetta, is a total loss. So this weekend was all about car-shopping. The last and only time I'd ever been car-shopping was right after college graduation and my Dad handled pretty much all of it for me, so this was a really new experience for both myself and Chris - I don't think he'd ever bought a car before... I guess there are some people out there who enjoy doing these kinds of things, but unfortunately I'm not one of them. It just seems like a big headache with all of the research and then bargaining with sales-people and waiting around for the paperwork - ugh. I was a bit surprised that the salesmen were surprisingly low-pressure, but then when we got into the finance office, the pressure to get an extended warranty was unbelievable. We ended up with a brand new Honda Civic - hope it was the right choice. Needless to say, I hope this car lasts us a long time, so we don't have to do this again any time soon. Now we just need to name her...

On to the art - Here's a sketch I did last week and will probably start painting tomorrow:

I'm not sure where the idea for this one came from. I remember sketching the thumbnail for it about five years ago when we were visiting my in-laws at Christmas time. I think I was trying to come up with ideas for a promo card at the time. Every time I'd flip back through my sketchbook, this one would catch my eye and I'd think, "I really need to paint that some day." So I'm glad to finally get around to it.

I don't know what it is with me and birds these days. Seems like half of the paintings I've done recently feature birds. I guess I just really like painting birds. Go figure.