I wish you the happiest of holidays

 Well Christmas is almost here and it feels as though the time has flown by. I've been spending my time creating last-minute gifts and stocking up on the Christmas cookie dough for the freezer. Next week I will have a marathon of baking and decorating for all the Christmas tins. As usual, I think I want to make too many different recipes and I end up with more than I need. It is fun though.

This time of year I'm always reminded about how much more we do have in this part of the world and how lucky we are. My only real complaint about Christmas is that it proves that we consume way too much and produce way too much garbage. We are very lucky to have such problems.

This time last year I wrote about a couple charities that I donated to and I'm happy to tell you that I was able to make a second Kiva loan and help support another entrepreneur. I hope to keep rolling my loan paybacks into new loans to help more people. For this year I've decided to donate to Charity:Water and support projects that give the most basic necessity of life. I live in an area that has some of the cleanest and most readily available water in the world. Again, I know that I am lucky and I want to help make clean water a reality for others.

Next week I'm going to take a little break and spend it quietly with my family. I hope that you enjoy the rest of the  Christmas season  and I will be back before the year ends. Happy Holidays!

Wordless Wednesday

Marmee Craft

Short Grass Designs

Pretty Plush

Matti Online

Studio Morran update

As a follow up to last week's post about Studio Morran and the sad news that little Morran had passed away, I now have some good news to tell you. I've now heard that the Studio Morran book has been completed and is available for purchase through Blurb. There is a condensed edition with 70+ illustrations and a large edition with over two hundred illustrations.
You can fully preview the book on the Blurb site. All profits will go towards the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Very cool.

I looked through the large edition and there are so many wonderful images of the late Morran. A fantastic edition to anyone's art book collection for sure. And you know what else? My digital painting of Morran was included too! I was so surprised! I honestly didn't think I would make the cut because I thought that there was so much fun imagery the jury had to choose from.  I'm so thrilled to be included with so many great illustrators and if I don't see a copy of this book under the Christmas tree I will be sure to become my own secret Santa. ; )

Wordless Wednesday

Nagisa Wada

A Dolly for Sue

Charlie Hearts Diesel

Mochi Liu

Studio Morran

 In the last week of October I saw a post from Geninne on Facebook about a call for submissions. I love Geninne's work so I took a look at the call. Artist Camilla Engman, another artist I admire had asked artist's to create an image of her little dog Morran in the hopes of creating enough images to compile a book. I saw the call just a few days before it was to be closed so I didn't have that much time to come up with something. I really wanted to be part of this though as her dog was just so darn cute! I quickly created a black and white digital painting of Morran based on one of her many Flickr portraits. I created it reductively just like I do my monotypes and it was a great exercise in using my tablet.

Below is my submission but I so wish I had more time to have created something more playful and unique.  You MUST check out the Studio Morran blog to see some of the fantastic submissions that have been accepted to be part of the book. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Unfortunately this post doesn't have a happy ending because little Morran became ill not too long ago and has since past away. Judging from all the sympathetic comments on the blog, Morran's little face will be missed. From muse to fond memory. Camilla, I'm very sorry for your loss.