Santa Cats!

Tangent

Haiku

Our cats are not quite in the holiday mood, but we're working on our little Scrooges. Could it be the Santa hat and beard making them so unhappy? Just wait until they find the little decorated Christmas tree in their litter box!

Have a happy and safe holiday everyone, and see you in the new year with fresh art!

Persimmon

We had a very wet week here in northern California and that always puts me in the mood for watercolor work. These little paintings are from my sketchbook and were done this weekend. Enjoy!

Hilltop near Farm Hill Road

Top of the trees.

Starling, darling...

My whistler in gold water...a study for color change for the larger oil version.

Tufted Puffin
6 x 8
oil on panel

When I was knee deep in my 50 birds last summer, my friend Shawn emailed me and requested that I paint a puffin. At the time I had not given any thought to painting these clown like birds, so I immediately responded that I thought puffins were "lame" and "the bottom feeders of the bird species" and would not waste my time painting one. I'm sure he was surprised by my rude response and nothing was ever mentioned about puffins again.

What Shawn didn't realize was he gave me the perfect idea for a gift for his 50th birthday which was celebrated in Monterey this weekend. For the past few weeks I've been working on the painting above in preparation for his birthday party, eager to hand it over to him. He was blown away by the gift as he thought for sure his good friend the artist dissed him in painting his favorite bird. Ha! Let it be known to the world that I am still full of surprises!

The tufted puffin can be found in Point Reyes National Seashore, which is very close to us, so they are a local bird. I like the expression on this one, with his "hair" combed back, he reminds me of an aging rock star...happy birthday, Shawn!