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Congratulations to the bride and groom, may you be happy together forever. Here is the small stone I wrote for the couple:

Purple hearts of the redbud tree weep raindrops of happiness onto white roses who hold their petals as if for the bride's bouquet.

As I look out my window today in Portland, Oregon the weather has changed once again back to rain for a couple of days. My Eastern Redbud sits in front of my door, its beautiful purple heart-shaped leaves bright against a background of many shades of green. Under it is a rose bush with stark white roses. Today, the purple leaves are drip drip dripping with rain, and drops are glistening all along the branches as well. Yesterday the sun was shining through the leaves, making them deep red -- another gorgeous sight, today it is rain and I choose to see the drops as tears of happiness for the bride. They do seem happy and have gathered so many people to celebrate with them, asked people to write these small stones for their wedding. To share in their joy. Brilliant! Ask for what we want, share our joy. These are concepts to be taken up and employed in all our lives, people. Better than wedding cake!

I'm going to have to blame my lack of inspiration, imagination, and drawing skill to the fact that I've had a cold for the last week so my brain is a fuzzy mess. I'm not happy with this one, but it did at least provide much needed therapy.

I now have to figure out what to draw next. Still uninspired ... NOT a good beginning to the new year, but hopefully (and I'm always hopeful) I'll catch up soon enough and will find new delights to capture my attention. Life has been full of distracting puzzles that I can't seem to figure out recently. Perhaps it's just time to let them go and look for new ones to work on. I could always conquer my fears and procrastination and try messing around with paints finally ... :) Cheers!

Red Rose cards & matching gifts at Floating Lemons at Zazzle

I'm going to have to blame my lack of inspiration, imagination, and drawing skill to the fact that I've had a cold for the last week so my brain is a fuzzy mess. I'm not happy with this one, but it did at least provide much needed therapy.

I now have to figure out what to draw next. Still uninspired ... NOT a good beginning to the new year, but hopefully (and I'm always hopeful) I'll catch up soon enough and will find new delights to capture my attention. Life has been full of distracting puzzles that I can't seem to figure out recently. Perhaps it's just time to let them go and look for new ones to work on. I could always conquer my fears and procrastination and try messing around with paints finally ... :) Cheers!

Red Rose cards & matching gifts at Floating Lemons at Zazzle

In my last post, I discussed the controversy regarding misleading book covers.

I’ve been so lucky with my covers. All of them have been designed by the genius Elizabeth Clark at Disney-Hyperion; the cover art for the last three were done by illustrator Larry Rostant .

I’ve been to bookfairs where I’ve seen teens walk by, spot my books on display, and make that sharp turn we all hope for (toward me, not away). You can’t ask for more than that.

With The Warrior Heir, there was a huge controversy about roses on the cover (which I like to refer to as The War of the Roses). The question: Would boys buy a book with roses on the cover?? Even one with a big sword in the middle?

If so, what kind of roses were the most macho? These?

Or these?

In the end, the book designer made the decision to leave the roses off.

With The Wizard Heir, my editor came to me and asked, What ‘s an object we can put on the cover, you know, like the sword? And I couldn’t think of any. The wizards were using amulets, but they were mostly nondescript stones with runes on them.

Well, my editor said, could you put in a wizard staff or something? I couldn’t picture Seph McCauley walking around with a wizard staff. So I gave one to Gregory Leicester.

Did you know these things went on?

By the time I wrote The Dragon Heir, I knew enough to be thinking ahead. Dragons, I thought. Dragons were always good on a cover. So I put the Dragonheart on a cool dragon stand.

With The Demon King, the book design was tricky. As the first book in a new series, we wanted a design that would tell my current readers to pick it up, that it was a book by an author they knew. But we wanted it to be different enough that people would realize it was a new series. I want to attract new readers without disappointing fans of the Heir Chronicles.

We thought a landscape background would set it apart.

That didn't seem atmospheric enough, so

They revised the layout to be more similar to the Heir Chronicles, and added the text, A Seven Realms Novel, to let readers know they were onto a different series. I just received the proof of the final cover, all foiled and spot varnished. It’s gorgeous.

The important thing is—when a book cover makes a promise, the book must deliver. Or nobody’s happy.

Rosebud Cupcake Number One

I simply can't believe it, I just realized that it's been nearly 2 MONTHS since my last blog post!
I knew it had been a while but truly, really, I had no idea it had been that long!
The Summer has simply slipped by like syrup sliding off a spoon....my studio is piled with finished paintings, and drawings for something hugely exciting that I've wanted to do for absolute ever...even though I have, as always, that feeling that I'm simply not getting enough accomplished.

The light is thinning just a bit... some afternoons, like today, the light, the air looks/feels as though it's whole milk rather than cream, on it's journey to the thin, blue skim milk light of Winter....the occasional yellowed leaf, even a crimson one tucked amidst the others like a rare and precious ruby...it's coming.
More raccoons at dusk, and lately when I'm still up at 3 am, I see them out and about. They're hungry and I've been putting out free, just past the sell by date, donuts! And this afternoon, a pie! Raccoons are mad for pie! Who knew? Watching their elegant slender fingered hands...paws? search about, seeking out the best bits....while gazing about, ever vigilant, is great entertainment.
This evening the Mamma Raccoon and her three children, a male who shows up frequently and several new black masked visitors feasted on cherry pie.There's an apple pie for tomorrow!

So....the new blog, it's called The Occasional Cupcake.......
I am not a cupcake connoisseur, hardly, nor an expert baker or eater of pies, cakes or cookies but I love painting them.....the fanciful decoration, the luscious swirl and curve of frosting, the sweet and indulgent promise of pleasure and / or comfort.
I am painting a collection of small sweet indulgences, there are great plans for them and I am offering them, as well, for sale or license. Please inquire.
Right now there is one, Rosebud Cupcake Number One.
Hopefully there will be another soon. very soon.......I wanted to call the blog The Daily Cupcake and like those admirable artists, paint a pretty cupcake, or a shimmering slice of pie, everyday. I knew however that immediately I'd miss my self imposed deadline as other deadlines clamor and cajole, so I opted for "occasional".

Please visit The Occasional Cupcake, and once there, you can even subscribe to see new posts and new paintings as they come!
Thank you so very much, your support and kind attention are well and truly appreciated!

Recently, I blogged on the topic of my new, laid-back approach to dealing with garden pests.

There is one major exception to this tolerant view—the Japanese beetle.

My feud with this voracious plant assassin goes back to the year I first planted roses. My roses looked beautiful until about the Fourth of July, when the mature beetles erupted out of the ground. I’d walk out to the garden to find my flowers covered in beetles. They seemed to have a knack for picking out the most beautiful buds, the loveliest flowers in full-blown glory—and ruining them.

Not only that, those beetles were copulating on my roses, they were coupling up and having sex while they chomped my flowers to bits. They emitted pheromones, calling their comrades to join the fun. Talk about your multi-tasking. Meanwhile, their devilspawn offspring lurked under the turf, grazing on the roots of my grass.

I tried those Japanese beetle traps, and my neighbors thanked me, because they drew all the beetles to MY yard. I crawled around my yard with a teaspoon, seeding it with milky spore to kill the grubs. With no apparent effect. Apparently you have to also convince all your less-obsessive neighbors to crawl around on their lawns, too. Or offer to do the crawling for them.

I tried systemic insect controls, even though I don’t like using pesticides in my garden. The beetles treated it like a condiment. I looked up “Japanese beetle controls” online. Nematodes were described as providing “marginal” control, and the extension service bulletin noted that milky spore “may not be effective in Ohio and Kentucky.” Nobody promised me a beetle-free future.

Anyway, it was fun looking at the pictures of nematodes invading the bodies of Japanese beetle grubs and parasitic fly maggots boring their way into the thoraxes of the adults.

Or consider our friend, the Japanese wasp tiphia vernalis. “The female wasp digs into the soil, paralyzes a beetle grub by stinging, and then deposits an egg on the grub. When the egg hatches, the emerging wasp larva consumes the grub.” HAHAHAHAHA!

I’m not usually like this.

Now that I work at home, I’ve resorted to a marginally effective but completely organic and simple approach. When I take writing breaks, I walk out to the garden, pick off the beetles, and drop them into a jar of soapy water. I don’t know what it is about soapy water that kills them, but it’s fast-acting, whereas a beetle can swim around in a jar of plain water for a couple of days. (Trust me on this.)

... but winter is long so I'm reveling in spring, rainy though it may be. This picture doesn't do justice to the roses. They bloom for such a short while. This was during a rare moment of sun yesterday afternoon:

















And this lady was in the backyard three mornings in a row last week laying her eggs, before she wandered back into the pond:

A simple PINK rose


Ruby RED cherries


PURPLE Sweet Peas in a lovely pink vase


Even more PURPLE Sweet Peas


Chartreuse Praying Mantis

And now a word from one of our sponsors...:)

(Venice, Italy) Angela Cook is a self-made woman with a jewel at the center of her heart. Her decades of hard work sparkle before your eyes the moment you enter her shop. Ganesha, the revered Indian god known as the Lord of Beginnings and the Remover of Obstacles, is the subtle influence for the name of the shop, filled with inspirational jewelry.

From precious rubies, emeralds and pearls, to chunks of amber and onyx, each piece is a singular creation, either designed by Angela herself, or specially chosen from her shopping expeditions throughout Europe, India and the Orient. She has gemstones at Ganesha that I've never seen before!

Ganesha radiates the flavor of the East spiced with a British touch, a unique combination. I love to wander in there and play with the jewelry. Angela has big, clunky silver wrist bands from Asia that make me feel like a female gladiator. Or rings and bracelets of fossilized ivory, intricately carved into roses. The ivory comes from the tusks of the wooly mammoth who roamed the Siberian tundra thousands of years ago. Imagine all the great women of the world wearning ancient mammoth ivory Rose Rings...

I haven't done any new yarn pieces the past two days. I just hit a wall. Sometimes you need to take a rest from things, you know? I'm sure I'll get back to them in the next few days.

I'm proud of myself for having done one a day for almost three weeks, but I'll confess to you, it felt like much longer! Not that I don't enjoy doing them, I'm just facing the fact that I'm not a good "daily painter". Why do we have to do one a day anyway? For me I think it will be enough to commit to doing them regularly, and fairly often, but not every day.

I also have other work projects on my table and schedule, and I need to get some of that!

Some people have expressed interest in seeing these pieces as cards. So I'm working up a small line of greeting cards to go into my card shop. Hopefully over the weekend I'll be able to get them finished, and will post about them here, of course.


On a different note, yesterday I managed to get outside and prune some of my roses. Its almost too late, but I figured better almost late than never.
And I have a lot of roses. So I happily pruned away for a good while, then last night I noticed my "pruning hand" (which is also my drawing hand) was really sore! I mean, really really sore. Like, "ow, I can't draw or even lift a glass of water" sore.
Who knew pruning could be so debilitating?

We are in a deep freeze today; every inch of grass, trees, roads and homes are covered with a thick layer of ice. All my plans for shopping and errands..poof! The roads are just too dangerous to out be on today. The ice covered my beautiful minature rose bush in our front yard. I do hope it survives as it is north facing. So now it's to the project list.

It's crazy! Do you ever have those days, weeks and months where you are working on a dozen projects at one time? That's me, the story of my life. I am high in Input so that explains everything. We are in the midst of renovating, decorating for Christmas, booking flights and I am working on a Christmas card and have almost finished my first composition book. Phew! This has me stressing about how will I get it all done? Oh, and I must make one Christmas ornament for an exchange coming up...when's a girl have time to soak and relax??? Not to mention do all the Christmas shopping...

You are probably wondering why I haven't posted any illustrations lately. I actually am working on several illustrations and will post them as time permits. As I said, I am working on a Christmas card and I just finished a promo card that I send to clients. I also handed them out at the most recent Silver Bella event.

In the coming year I will be working on rebuilding my website and my blog. Have I said I've put enough on my plate to wear the most industrious woman out?

And yet another post of a Silver Bella project taught by the lovely Rebecca Sower.

This was such a fun project. I loved all the little glass pieces and mini collages underneath. It looks so much better in person and the edges of the glass are tipped in an antique glitter. Rebecca was so helpful and took the time to work with everyone individually as needed.