Siren Sisters

I created a mermaid piece a few months ago that I named Serena...I felt she had a real serenity about her. Very peaceful.
Recently I decided to create another mermaid, a "Siren Sister" using the same basic shape that I gave the first...but, since no two piece can ever be the same even if I tried...I decided to not even come close.
This time I chose to go a more vivid route with the colors. While I kept her with the flaming red hair...the tail took on a colorful fun loving feel.
While the first is more of an inward looking gal....I believe the second is the party girl.
Or...as we can all relate to...maybe they are two different sides of the same person. You decide.

Mother's Day

I celebrated mine yesterday.
My beautiful daughter came for the day....and started it off with giving me flowers.
We had plans to spend the entire day doing "pre-wedding" errands for her upcoming big day in Sept. Well....it turned out to be quite the productive day.

We had also been going back and forth with places to have the rehearsal dinner since the wedding will be in a fairly rural area of New England to say the least. That is now taken care of. With a last minute stop in a place that hadn't even crossed our radar....not only did we try the food and discover it was delightful...but it is now booked for the day!!
Of course we also had to stop and get cupcakes from places that needed to be checked to see who would be doing the "interactive" cupcake tower. We again discovered a new place that may be top on the list.
Her dress had also arrived at the shop..so we went to see it and she got to try it on....and it was perfect. The fear of having the wrong dress ordered or a vastly wrong size were soon put to rest. The right dress and the perfect size!! Yes....there will be a good nights sleep.

I have to tell you, the day went sooo perfectly that when we were in the dress shop, Sarah found a dress on the clearance rack that was almost made for her. There was only one, marked down to an unbelievable price that just happened to fit her like a glove. Of course she got it then put it on when we got back to the house. I put my red dress on as well....and here is our "mommy & daughter" picture.
Yep...a day doesn't get much nicer than that!!

Mini delights!!

It always delights me whenever some of my art gets published. Whether it's in a national magazine or a local publication. Any press at all is good press.
Sometimes I make a serious effort to make it happen...sometimes it just comes to me. This latest one was due to a "readers challenge".
Cloth Papers Scissors Magazine was holding a challenge at the beginning of the year for "mini" art. The idea was to do something that was 4" or less in the style that you would normally do your larger art.
Well....this was no problem. For a few years now I've been making some mini pieces (2.75") to go along with my larger art for the gallery in Cape Cod that represents my work... The Little Beach Gallery.
I decided that one of my little seagulls would be just the thing. So I made one for the challenge and emailed the image. A month later, when the challenge closed I received an email saying I was a finalist and would need to send it to them for a photo shoot. I was soo excited....but still had no idea when I'd see it in print. All I knew was we were to receive our work back in mid April.
Then one morning when I got online with my art group, a friend of mine who had just gotten her latest subscription copy for May/June posted a "congratulations" to me. When I asked her why, she said she spotted my seagull right away in the issue! How fun!!
Cloth Paper Scissors is one of my favorite magazines. Always cool interesting articles. I actually worked with them once before for their very first Collage in Color eMag. I was one of their features for that one, complete with a stop action video which was great fun to create.
I was now thinking that I would see my little seagull turn up back home soon...but he never arrived in the mail. Next thing I knew...I had an email from the assistant editor. Seems she spends a lot of her summer in the Cape. She said that my little guy reminded her very much of the happy days that she spends there. Then...she asked if she could buy him from me!!

Well........needless to say, I was just over-the-moon flattered by that. Knowing how much artwork goes through those offices all of the time, to think that my little gull made such a connection made me quite proud.
Although I do normally "sell" them...I was so honored by the request that I decided to simply "gift" it to her instead.
I'm just thrilled to know that my little guy has a good home.
Barbara, thank you for the compliment. Enjoy!