This Old House

This old house definately is not my house. I wonder who lives here? If walls could talk they might say...An honorable group of bats pay top dollar for the attic space. Unfortunately a freeloading family of squirrels noticed the bat's nightly migration. Now the freeloaders sneak in every night rent free. A squeaky clean family of mice have rented out the interior. Meanwhile a posse of masked bandits have taken over the kitchen. They are able to do what ever they want since they are the only animals capable of carrying a gun. (with their opposable thumbs) The basement has been completely taken over by spiders. Can you imagine the nerve it would take to build a house on someone else's property? Well, spiders do it all the time with their webs. And then there are the centipedes. They are under the impression they can out run the landlord. Have you ever seen one streak by at night? And speaking of things that go bump in the night. Try collecting rent from a ghost sometime. No wonder this place needs a coat of paint.

Instructions: House, Napkins Included.

My friend Nina and I did an exchange of goods and services. I made her enough napkins to make it to laundry day and she illustrated my house. If you click to enlarge you can see two naughty little kitties sitting in the window. My house never looked so cute. Thanks Nina! You can check out her blog at http://www.ninacrittenden.blogspot.com/ The fabric in the next photo was for Nina's napkins. And the next two pictures show one of my napkins and some placemats I made. I included the placemats because lets face it. Napkins are boring! I made a basket full out of old fabric. So instead of using (and throwing away) a paper napkin at each meal. You have a cloth one. Cloth napkins are not exactly a new idea. But making them the size of a regular napkin might be...who knows. I'll let you in on another little secret. The napkin in the photo has never been used. It is strictly for photo shoots...or maybe company.

A Quetzal for Christmas

It's time to put up the Christmas tree. And it's time for a new blog post. So I put the two together and came up with last year's new ornament. Plus it's the only thing I've created that even comes close to resembling a turkey. I've painted a new ornament for every year that my husband and I have celebrated Christmas together. Last year was Christmas 13. And it was the year of the Quetzal. A nod to our upcoming Costa Rica trip. I also posted some peeping tom shots of the real thing. The pictures were taken through a scope in Costa Rica's Cloud Forest. The elusive Quetzal is a beautiful bird. The males have a long tail of feathers that trails behind them in flight. But we were just happy to see one sitting in a tree.

Talking Turkey

The President didn't pardon these two turkeys. But he did decide to hide them in a top secret location at Fort Snelling. As the official White House turkey photographer I was granted clearance to take these photos. It's a fairly new position. And I'm usually assigned in the midwest because of the large turkey population here. But like every American I do dare to dream. I've been told by a big wig mucky muck in Washington that if I do a really good job with the turkeys, I might be assigned to bald eagles. So by next Thanksgiving some other clown might be taking turkey photos. Keep your fingers crossed. My fingers are crossed right now. But I'm telling the truth...Honest!

Surprise!

I was going to post some great deer photos I've taken over the Summer and Fall. Then I realized I actually have photos of all the creatures I painted in Dean's Wildlife from last weekend. And as most of you probably know I always relate my art and photos in some way. The first photo is of my cat Baby. She is bossing God around as we speak. The Blue jeans frog was taken on a night hike at Tirimbina, Costa Rica. Do you see his blue jeans? The pheasant photo was taken near Hixton, Wisconsin. The elegant fawn was captured in someone's front yard in Hatfield, Wisconsin. The Owl moth was discovered at Pasado Andrea Cristina in Costa Rica. And lastly the baby bunny was found bouncing around our backyard. For more Cats On Tuesdays visit http://www.gattinamycats.blogspot.com/ Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Dean's Wildlife

I did this painting years ago. It's making an appearance because of the photos I plan to post later this week. The goal of this painting was to depict a whimsical forest scene. There are rays of light shining through the trees. And some forest (and non-forest) creatures at play. I painted it as a gift for my husband Dean. He's a wildlife kind of guy. But I don't typically paint that sort of thing. If you click to enlarge you can see the cool textured paper I used. I actually had this painting hanging up for awhile. But now it's sadly spending the rest of eternity inside my studio closet. I guess that's better than my infamous basement archives.

The Original Akua Nani at Inn Paradise

When we found our new cats at the Humane Society almost 2 years ago we had Hawaiian names already picked out. Hana, a beautiful town on the island of Maui was our first pick. And our 2nd pick was Acua. Acua was a sweet and friendly cat that belonged to Major and Connie, the owners of Inn Paradise on the island of Kauai. http://www.innparadisekauai.com/ We loved our stay at Inn Paradise. My favorite memory was simply making breakfast and eating it on the lanai. A good breakfast would always include Papaya and soaking up the peaceful scenery of Major's backyard. If you look closely at the photo you'll see wild pigs at play. But years later when we named our cat Acua, we weren't sure if we were spelling it right. And we always wondered what Acua meant in Hawaiian. So we emailed Major this week and he got back to us right away. It turns out we've been spelling it wrong. Here is what Major said. "Akua Nani (Beautiful Spirit) is her name. Akua means God, Goddess, Spirit, image, supernatural. So it is how it is used in a sentence that the meaning is determined. Nani means beauty, beautiful. Ho'Nani means to beautify" Thanks Major! But Goddess? I think I might owe my Tomcat an apology. But I'm certainly not changing such a beautiful name! For more Cats On Tuesday visit www.gattinamycats.blogspot.com