Heaven

This morning I woke up early
and treated Manolo & the boys with this:

Organic Homemade Butter

and organic No-Knead Bread
The recipes are so easy it's amazing.
My boy's faces
were the best reward!

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Galison

I was approached by
Galison last summer
to make a birdie themed illustration
for their '09 Holiday card collection
and it is now available :)

I also licensed
four of my birdies
that make a really charming
boxed Note Card set
that includes five of each
of these little guys.

The ABC of Birds

I created this ABC of birds poster
for the 7th issue of LMNOP magazine.

Click here to download a free copy
of Issue No 7 of LMNOP Magazine

And read the fun questions

I answered on page 2.

It is an entire issue dedicated to the alphabet.
There are 12 x 16 prints
available at my Etsy shop.

Fish Frame

I decided to separate my fishies
and Photoshop them onto some vintage postcards.

Meet Finn,

Franklin,

Frannie,

Frida,

Floyd,

and Freddy.

I'll have them ready for the shop on Monday.
I framed mine and displayed them
in the ledge of our living room.
The prints will be 5 x 7 inches.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Thank you so much for visiting my blog,
it's always a pleasure to have you.

Something Fishy

Click on the image to see it BIGGER
Watercolor on paper & acrylic ink
Will be available as a print
at my Etsy shop later today :)

White

Still playing with white acrylic ink & kraft paper :)
It has been pouring rain outside
every afternoon for the past couple of days...
perfect kind of weather for drawing
and drinking tea.

Kraft

Today I found a kraft paper notebook
I had totally forgotten I had
and made this little birdie
with some Sharpie markers
& white acrylic ink.

Stuff

...in the studio today.

If you click on the images
you can see them BIGGER :)

Open for business!

I've just reopened my shop today
with a couple of new prints.

This little birdie is called "My Heart is Yours"

I also listed 20 signed and numbered sets
of the "Lotus" prints.

"Little Bits of Nature" book

Remember these?

I turned them into a little art book

called: "Little Bits of Nature" book.

It's 5 x 5 inches
and it has 9 original watercolors

Since the "Tiny Book of Birds" got so much love,
I'm thinking of maybe doing
a small limited edition of these for my shop
with archival quality prints.
The book covers are made with
handmade local 100% cotton paper.

Illustration Friday: PARADE

Don't let it rain on your happy parade :)
Watercolor and micron pen.
Click on the image
to see it BIGGER.

Happy Mother's Day

My beautiful mom in 1962
Hope you have a wonderful day.

Best friends are we...my sister & me

I found this photo today
of my sister Kiki & me at the bumper cars.
I love the way she's hugging me...
waiting for me to "protect" her...so cute!
From my haircut
I'm guessing this was in Brazil
circa 1976 but I'm not sure.
I know for sure that I picked out the
turquoise car... :)

F.A.Q #2

This is probably the question I'm asked the most.
This is my favorite carving block to make stamps.
It really does cut like butter:

This tool is called a linoleum cutter.
I use one made by Speedball.
I mostly use the liner tip, and the large gouge:

I have experimented with many brands of ink pads
and this is my favorite brand:

I hope this is helpful & encourages you to try it out,
it is so much fun!

*Someone wanted to know
what font I used to type the F.A.Q.:
It is American Typewriter regular :)

News!

We're getting a puppy!
The litter was born yesterday :)
My boys will have a new best friend
this summer,
and I'm so excited!
I haven't had a dog since I was in college
and I miss it so much.
His name will be Turbo.
Made this watercolor today,
can you guess his breed?

*I'll be back tomorrow with the F.A.Q.

Frequently Asked Questions

Thank you so much for all of the comments
on my very first video tutorial :)
I am so glad everyone enjoyed it,
it was really fun to make and I will definitely
make more videos for you in the future.
I received many emails with a variety of questions
about my work & blog so I decided to make
a little series of F.A.Q. posts to try and answer all of them.

F.A.Q.#1
What camera do you use
to take all the photos you post on your blog?
For the first two years of my blog I used a
4 megapixels Fuji FinePix S3100.
I recently gave the Fuji to my youngest son
and bought myself
a 10 megapixels Canon PowerShot SX10IS.
I edit (crop, resize, brightness, etc...) my photos with
PhotoShop Elements.