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Each month we bring you the best new release books in our Book Brief. Get FREE shipping when you use the promo code bookbrief at checkout Fiction Books Sweet Caress by William Boyd The new William Boyd is simply sublime. Sweet Caress tells the story of photographer Amory Clay and her tumultuous life over the […]

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Fiction Books When The Night Comes by Favel Parrett A story of growing up, journeys into the great unknowns and that anything in life is possible. Parrett’s writing is truly mesmerizing. Her words immediately draw you in and you are swept away. Poetical, evocative and truly moving this will not only have you immediately falling […]

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sapphire blue, to be exact.

working on Iris, September's mermaid this week. still slowly recovering from c spine surgery so i can't paint as quickly or as much as i'd like.

the nervous system never ceases to amaze me. especially how neck surgeries affect your arm and your hand. i guess that's why those neurosurgeons get paid the big bucks! they certainly deserve it! amazing how all that stuff works...

hoping to have beautiful little Iris done soon! :)

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"Aster" - Flower of September

Yuppers, it's turnin' into autumn!

First thing's first...

The new Flower of the Month fairy for September is finished! It's been finished for a few weeks (sorry for my delay in posting). I have started November, she should be out by the end of September, if not the first week of October.

My Mama

My mother's birthday is in September, so any time I do a piece that has to do with Libra, September, Sapphire, or Autumn I tend to show features that resemble my mom.

She's a constant source of inspiration for me in the women I wish to show having courage and maturity. Plus, she has long gorgeous black hair. That inspires me EVERY time. :)

View the entire image and print listing on Etsy:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/79669617/print-fairy-september-sapphire-flower


A Painting for Halloween

I don't normally paint for Halloween. It's been years since I even had the desire to. Now...that's not saying I don't like Halloween, but my work tends to be something that could be used year round. I like that. But I do so love a good mask, so I thought I'd paint one. :)

Here's the work in progress. She's pretty small; a 4x6 painting. Something quick but elegant. I have always wanted to throw a Masquerade Ball, hopefully someday I will. But until then, I must live through my paintings.

I hope to have her finished by the end of the week. If not, I'll go crazy! Not quite sure what to call her yet...

Have you ever been to a Masquerade Ball? If so, was it as much fun as they look? I want to know!

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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at Holder’s decision to conduct investigations on the CIA. See his previous OUPblogs here.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to conduct investigations on the CIA presents a serious dilemma for the Obama White House, which was at pains to point out that Holder’s decision was independently made. I think the White House is being honest here, because these investigations will only be a distraction from health-care reform. The bigger problem thrown into sharp relief here, however, is that democracies’ commitments to justice and the politics necessary to deliver electoral and governing solutions do not always sit happily together.

The pursuit of justice (which is state-sanctioned retribution) is inherently a backward looking process. It most look to the past in order to establish that a wrong was committed. And to put things bluntly, even when properly meted out, justice often offers only cold comfort to whom injury was inflicted. Especially in politics, such returns are slow in the coming, if they come at all.

If the pursuit of justice pulls us back in time, the conduct of politics pulls us into the future. Power today is a derivative of the anticipated store of power tomorrow, which is itself a function of whether today’s promises are fulfilled tomorrow. Politicians (in active service) don’t have time for the past, for they must protect their future. President Obama is looking ahead to the health-care battles to come in the Fall, and he does not want (nor does he need) to be pulled back to rehash a contest with the last administration in which voters already declared him a winner in 2008. Justice and Politics do not go well in this moment, and Obama knows full well that he has more to lose than he has to gain in Holder’s investigation. To stay in office, he must offer a politics of solutions, and not the politics of redemption that his liberal base wants.

Strangely enough, Dick Cheney is on the side of liberal Democrats on this one, at least in the sense that he understands that democratic countries are bad war-makers. The difference of course, is that Cheney believes that democratic ends can be met with undemocratic means (while some liberals believe that war is sport of kings, not democracies). In Cheney’s own words on Meet the Press in 2001: “We have to work the dark side, if you will. Spend time in the shadows of the intelligence world.” Cheney’s thorough-going ends-justifies-means philosophy is revealed in his interview with Chris Wallace. “They looked at this question of whether or not somebody had an electric drill in an interrogation session — it was never used on the individual,” Cheney said of the inspector general’s report. “Or that they had brought in a weapon — never used on the individual.” This cavalier attitude towards undemocratic means stems largely from a very sharp line differentiating “us” and “them” in the neoconservative world-view, a line that takes off from a commitment to protecting the demos in a democracy and a characterization of all others as outsiders to our social contract. This line is imperceptible to the liberal eye fixated on universal justice, which presumes the basic humanity of even a terrorist suspect.

Democrats really want to go for Cheney, but they will have to settle for the CIA; Cheney wants to protect his legacy, but he will have to settle for a proxy war. The politicization of justice and the justiciation of politics are reifiying the turf battles between CIA and FBI, the very cause of the intelligence failures that led to September 11 in the first place. The mere fact that we are airing our dirty laundry in public is already having a “chilling” effect on CIA agents and both Cheney and Holder are complicit in this. Justice and Politics are friends to democracy individually, but we are better off without one of them in this case.

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I received a cool award from a fellow blogger! Check this out:

Its the Arte y Pico award. Its now sitting on my mantle next to the Oscar and Emmy.
It was given to me by the wonderful Leslie Hawes who is talented with colored pencils and also tells very entertaining stories on her blog. Thanks Leslie!
(I'm technically supposed to choose 5 deserving people to pass the award on to, but since I never play these games and Leslie knows that, I've been absolved from passing it along. Just so you know.)

And Ranjini, another super talented colored pencil artist, gave me a mention in her latest CPSA bulletin. I was really honored, thanks Ranjini! I'm feeling a bit sheepish though because I've been "off" my colored pencils a bit lately.
(Well, that's not entirely true. I actually just finished up a big children's book project, but what I mean is that I haven't done any of my "own" colored pencil work for a spell. )
Its time to get back to the board. Sometimes paying work takes over and who can say no to that?

Speaking of CPSA, did you know they have a blog now? Its very new, but hopefully it will be a good place to check in and find out what's going on in CPSA news for all of us CPSAers.

Boy howdy, I need to do some website and blog updating. Do you all get behind too? I need to put up some new art and do some rearranging of things and weeding out. It kinda feels like cleaning a closet or something.

Today is September 1st!!!!! I made it through the summer. I'm ecstatic that we'll be into Fall soon now. No more flip flops, and I can finally start wearing sweaters again. Soup! Pretty leaves! Fires in the fireplace! Gourds! Crisp air! Did I mention Sweaters! Uncontrolled Knitting!

But first I have to go render a building for an assignment, so I'm off to make fresh coffee and do that. Everyone have a good day! (If you're here in the US you're supposedly having a Labor Day holiday, unless you're an illustrator, for whom those kinds of holidays mean pretty much nothing.

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