Dragon Tattoo!
I'm not really a tattoo artist, but I have designed a few tattoos by special request. Semi-recently I had a request from someone to use one of my existing designs as a tattoo - my Celtic Knotwork Dragons piece. At first I thought they just wanted to use part of it since I figured that was WAY too big for a tattoo if you wanted to keep the detail, but they said they wanted to do the complete tattoo! And luckily he sent me a photo of the finished work! The original is up at the right there, and here's the photo of the tattoo:
WOWEE!!! It sort of blows my mind that someone liked my art (not even personalized!) enough to wear it forever - hope it ends up being a good luck charm for him. (Sorry about the copyright notice on the image - I didn't want this guy's photo to be hijacked into a tattoo gallery!)
Broken Vistas
THIS Broken Vistas has nothing to do with Microsoft however - HAH. It's a triptych of photographs that I took during the rainy season here in Central California.
There was just such a nice contrast of the fresh green grass, the blue sky, and the cross section of tan land where the sides of hills had given away over time. These photos are actually taken along Panoche Road in Paicines, in the same vicinity of Pinnacles National Monument, if you've heard of it.
(You can click the image to get a framed or unframed print in my Imagekind Gallery.)
Celtic Clockwork
Recently I tried out something a little different with my Celtic artwork. A sort of abstract black and white piece with all different kinds of spirals. I called it Celtic Clockwork because it reminded me of all the gears inside a clock. You can see the slightly different versions that I put on t-shirts, versus greeting cards, etc.:
I also have framed and unframed prints available through my gallery at Imagekind:
Wild Kingdom Around Here
First it was the boar and boar piglets (see previous posts for video links), but then last night there was a coyote dodging around here, and this morning, a bobcat! I got a few quick photos - the coyote was elusive and the shot isn't great quality but there's the added bonus of getting a scrub (blue) jay in the shot as well, which I didn't notice until later. (The old bathtub in the field is actually in a cow pasture and is for the cattle - heh.)
The bobcat photo was much better - he was just sitting on the hillside watching us. Seems like he waited for me to snap a photo and then jogged away.
I'm pretty happy to draw the line at animal close encounters with that. I did actually see a mountain lion (cougar) here a number of years ago, but those are really big and I'm not so much interested in seeing one of those close enough to get a photo, even with my zoom lens.
Recently, a number of wild boar have been coming down the hillside to root around for food. Luckily they aren't the HUGE ones, just mid-size, and they scare away easily. But the other day when I was watching them, I saw this small rust streak under the boar and I realized there were boar piglets running around too! I wasn't too successful with getting good photos at first, but then yesterday, the whole mini-herd came down and started rooting around and eating the fallen walnuts under the black walnut tree by our house (on the OTHER side of the fence, I'm happy to say.) And I was able to get some reasonable videos of the action - big boars and little colorful piglets!
Keep in mind that these videos were taken through the window screen, so they aren't as sharp as they could be, and there's really no sound, but the piglets are so cute - heh. Also, most of the clips are under 45 seconds long. Click here to see the videos. Enjoy!
I had been shopping for some new casual shoes/sneakers, but found nothing that I liked, or was in my size or price range, even at the outlet mall - sigh. I'm also pretty picky about what I was looking for, in a mundane sort of way - something normal, but passably interesting, comfortable, and definitely no plastic colors or gold lame' - LOL. Then, John happened to mention that people at work often buy shoes online at Zappos, and that they had free shipping both ways. (I'm probably the last person in the online world to have heard of Zappos, but I'm so NOT a fashionista - LOL.) So I dove into their web site and after just a bit of clicking around I found just what I was looking for - a cool suede sneaker from a maker called Simple Shoes (See photo at right.)
Although the ones I bought weren't from their extreme-ecological line, they have a great philosophy and some wonderful casual shoes with a focus on recycling and sustainability - check them out! Also, although I opted for the free shipping, Zappos expedited my order and I got my shoes in no time. They're comfy, a perfect fit, and they don't make my feet look at big as they really are - quite a... ahem... feat! (sorry!)
Leaf Mosaic
I'm still playing with the idea of angles and lines through shapes, and ended up creating what I'm calling "Leaf Mosaic" - another colored pencil piece. (The original is done on dusty blue-green charcoal paper, so no 'white' showing through.)
I've got it in my Gallery at Imagekind, and you can click the image or click here for framed or unframed prints.
