The Old Hacienda

As seen from our back yard.
I've been spending a lot of time in our yard
since little Turbo arrived.
I can't wait till he's fully immunized
so we can take him out for long walks around the hood.
Click here to go to
my "Neighborhood" photo set at Flickr.
The beautiful Hacienda was built in the late 1500s
and I love the fact that it's orange.

Urban Outfitters

Two of my birdies are now available
@ an Urban Outfitter's Store near you!
I just got mine and I hung them
in my studio.

8.5"w, 2"d, 10"h
Printed on heavy board & bordered
with an attached wooden frame.

Click here & here to check them out
at the Urban Outfitter's online store

Framed

It's so great to see my my work
living happily in other people's walls.
Here is my "Birdies A to Z" print
at my lovely friend Yvonne's home.
I really love how she framed it
with the big white mat & simple frame.

Rita & Artur are keeping my prints
company at the talented Maria's studio.

My little "Terrarium" print is happy
at a cozy corner of my artist friend Tiel's home.

All in a row at Courtney 's fabulous studio.

And finally my birdies
living at Carly's beautiful home
in Northern Ireland.

Thank you so much to all of you
that have purchased my art
to keep you company, I am truly honored.

Puppy news flash...and video :)

Little Turbo just turned 8 weeks old!
He had his first visit to the vet today
since he's been living with us & he was a real champ!

We begin border collie puppy classes
a week from today and we can't wait.

Little blooms

The wild flowers don't come out here until the fall.
But I carved myself a little stamp garden today.

Happiness

Watercolor & acrylic ink
9 x 12 inches
Click on the image to see it BIGGER

New illustration

Something I'm working on this weekend...

Hope you have a lovely one.

Sit!

This little guy is not only unbearably cute
but he's super smart as well.
My oldest son Israel has already taught him to sit
when offered a treat or his favorite toy.
I hope I'm not boring you to death
with puppy posts, but I just can't help it :)

Peacock Tree print

It's now available at my shop.

12 x 16 inches.
That's my lovely son Daniel posing for me.
He's the best print model ever :)

Puppy Butt

Turbo doing the "pancake" position.
Did you know there's even a Flickr Group
called Animal Pancakes?
The things you learn on the internet...

Ah puppy butts!
One of life's simple pleasures :)

He's here!

Our little puppy is finally home &
we are completely in love with him.

I tried uploading a little video I made today
but my internet connection is really slow.
You can hop over to my Flickr and watch it there
by clicking on this link

Swollen

I had to temporarily say good-bye
to my little tabletop chest of drawers.
Some of the drawers swelled from the humidity
and I could no longer open them.
They went back to the shop to be re-adjusted.

I can hardy contain myself from the excitement
that our little puppy is arriving tomorrow!
Our heart is swollen with love.

My Dad

My dad with his grandpa Abraham.

Being goofy with his baby cousin.
He still makes that same face :)

Looking groovy in the 70s.
My dad is the kinda guy that would wake up
to make my sister Karyn & me
chocolate oatmeal for breakfast
and pack our lunch for school with
little hidden love notes inside.
Happy Father's Day daddy,
I love you.

Finished Peacock Tree

Watercolor & acrylic ink on paper. 9 x 12 inches
Click on the image to see it BIGGER

I love this stage, with just a couple of colors in.

Sometimes I'm just tempted to leave it like that.

But then I just go for it.

And Voila!
It will be available as a large print
in my shop next week.
I'm thinking of printing it on
Amate paper,
I need to make some tests this weekend.
I'll be back Sunday to celebrate my Dad :)

Kitchen counter

Taken yesterday afternoon.
I have a new orchid & a little thyme plant
to keep me company.

Peacock Tree

Peek at a new watercolor I'm working on.
I made the pencil drawing today.

I'll watercolor it later tonight.
I always feel a compulsion to paint
when it's raining outside,
the grayer the day the better.
What kind of day inspires you to paint?

Happy Radishes

The radishes we had for lunch today were so cute
we almost didn't eat them.

Fly

My bird escaped the collage & is exploring
new worlds...
Inspired by the beautiful work
by my friend Margie.
Click on it to see it bigger.

1994

I found these photos I took of my desk in 1994
while browsing through an old photo album
this morning .

I used to love covering my desk with Kraft paper
and doodle all kinds of things on it.
That year it was a calendar.

I was completely in love with
a box of Prismacolor pencils
my dad had given me on my birthday.
It was around that time I discovered watercolors.
1994 was a great year.

June pages

Went with feathers for these pages of my journal.

I'm off to the movies to see
A Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
with Manolo and the boys.
Loved the first one.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Re-Use

Little collage I made this morning
re-using some of my discarded prints
& a birdie I drew on vellum with white acrylic ink.
Click on the image to see it BIGGER

Monday Monday

So good to me :)

Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be.

The sun is shining, the birdies are singing
and I've got lots of painting to do today.

Happy Monday to you!

Moon

Looking at the moon from my desk tonight and
listening to Ray Lamontagne's "Winter Birds"
over and over again :)

Journal pages

I had not posted pages from my journal
since February!

You can see more of my journals
by clicking here.
I'm using an olive green 5.5 x 5.5 inches
Hand Book Artist Journal

*FYI: I glued those paper doilies
onto my journal using PVA glue
and drew/wrote on them
after they were completely dried.

Moleskine

A page from one of my watercolor
Moleskine notebooks.
5 x 8 inches

Terrariums in progress

Watercolor on gorgeous
Twinrocker handmade paper.
8 x 18 inches

Puppy love!

Meet little Turbo.

We are in love :)
He's coming home with us on the 23rd and
I need to hurry up and finish
six books on Border Collies
that I'm reading right now.
We got to meet Turbo
& his little brothers and sisters today
and we cannot stop thinking about him.

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.

Me....in action!

Stamp Carving from Geninne Zlatkis on Vimeo.
I made this 10 minute video today
to show the whole process
of making a hand carved stamp.
It might take a while to load so be patient.
The music I used is called
"Bigger Situation" by Leo Kottke,
a favorite of mine :)
Enjoy!

Deconstructed

New print set I'm making for my shop.

It's a block print deconstructed version

of my latest watercolor piece.

It will be sold as a set @ my Etsy shop
when I reopen it mid May.
It is printed onto beautiful
Fabriano Medioevalis
4.75" x 4.75" paper.
It will be signed and numbered.

***I wanted to thank all of you
who have written to let me know
you are keeping us in your prayers
during these scary times in Mexico.
We are staying away from the City,
healthy & tucked lovingly under God's wings.

Psalm 91:4 (KJV)
He shall cover thee with his feathers,
and under his wings shalt thou trust:
his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

In color

Watercolor & acrylic ink on paper
9 x 12 inches

Water Lilies

Sketch for a new piece I'm working on.
9 x 12 inches

I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine:
he feedeth among the lilies.
Song of Solomon 6:3 (KJV)

Color overload

One of my favorite Sunday activities

is going to the city with Manolo and the boys.

More so if it includes a visit to the Market
(Mercado de Medellin).

I love spring and sandal wearing weather!

Royalty

Edmund, king of the blooming
magnolia tree.

Click on the image to see it BIGGER.

Made just for fun,
after working on many "for work" projects lately.
Watercolor & acrylic ink
on paper.

Colorful Mexico

People often comment
on how colorful my work is.
I guess it just rubs off from this
amazingly colorful country I live in.
This is my local Post Office :)