Animals Everywhere!

I thought I’d share a few friends I’ve met this year. I’ve interacted with far more species than I had anticipated. But as I’ve always said…everyone is welcome in my booth as long as you have 4 legs or less!

This Cicada posed for a mugshot.

We think his name is Gary the cicada. The thumb in the picture belongs to a 6’2” guy named Paul. So if you have never seen a cicada up close before, they are the size of a grown mans thumb & make weird noises. Yup….nature.

This was very exciting for me. This is a sugar glider. Another artist had 4 in her super awesome star wars pouch. She said they can live for 20 years.

This is the wildest of all the forest creatures. He was such a sweetheart. I can’t remember his name because his fantastic EWOK look was too much to compete with.

TOO MANY LEGS!!!! This guy was about 3-4 inches long. Luckily he was outside of my tent, and after I told him he probably would be happier far faaaaaaaaar away from me, he left. Did I mention…..TOO MANY LEGS!!

Well this is what happens when you feed wild animals regularly…they get close & steal your Wheat Thins. I had to use 10 more wheat thins to progressively get him further & further away from the tent…he was wandering in & out of artist tents in the morning looking for food!!! I look at it like this: I paid him 11 Wheat thins for his amazing modelling fee!

Watercolors Surrounded by Water!

Water is the essence of life they say! It’s literally everywhere this summer! It’s been a very wet season so far, so why not join it, right? I decided to honor our soggy season by playing with some watercolors again. I’ve had some extra time at some shows (the wet ones) & as always in the hotel rooms while traveling show to show. Its been fun getting reacquainted with this fun medium again. Any who, I figured I’d share some pictures & let you know that these are all for sale at shows…I usually have a bin on the wall (separate from the prints) that are all original art, matted & unframed for $200-300. I just add to it when I finish one so it’s ever changing!

“Untitled” - Just about finished during the Ann Arbor show in July. Why did I have time? It was 4 days of 100 degree heat index with pop up storms in the afternoon that caused the show to close 3 hours early 2 nights in a row!! It was a crazy weather weekend to say the least!

“Untitled”/Watercolor - Here she is at the very beginning stages. It was great to play with because watercolor needs a lot of time to dry between layers, so I was able to do a little bit then set it in the sun to dry.

“untitled” / watercolor - The best part is watercolor is easy enough to take anywhere! This was a complete bonus day off in Minneapolis just before the Uptown show. This quiet little beach was a small hike from Minnehaha Falls - which is a must do for me every time I visit the area now.

We’ve all been at festivals when it rains. People usually do the same thing in every city…run for cover or head home. Many of you ask what we do when it rains. Well, this is it. We stay with our art! We make sure everything is protected, then wait. That way we’re still there when the skies clear up & everyone comes back. But sometimes that takes a little longer than we want.

Chuck Wimmer, an artist friend of mine shows what artists do when it rains. You can check his work out here