Gone for a week and came home to a pile of work and not enough time to do it. The litter pie is staying warm on the back burner until I get these gargoyles, mermaids, fairies and angels finished. Along with illustrating and painting, I design figurines for the giftware market. I actually get a kick out it; gargoyles are drawn with a glass of wine in one hand (it releases the inner demons and after a little alcohol they all want to party). Fairies need to be coaxed out with Irish music — something about penny whistles and jig time does the trick. Angels are best drawn following trips to Florence (like the one we took in December)for inspiration, and mermaids, well, I just started doing those, and I haven’t nailed down the best way to get there yet with mermaids. I might have to make a trip to an aquarium sometime soon, or maybe just out to my little pond out back with the goldfish, or as I like to put it, “prey”. There’s a red-shouldered hawk out here that thinks it’s an osprey and flops feet first into the freezing water and pops back up with a long strip of wriggling golden sushi. No mermaids out there that I know of, but if there were any, they’d be kept under control by the friendly neighborhood red-shouldered fish-hawk.

While visiting my family in Los Angeles (actually, the dry hills north in Ventura County) I got to watch the birds come to the feeder: lesser and American goldfinches, white-crowned sparrows, mourning doves, California towhees, American crows, rock doves, house finches, scrub jays, yellow-rumped warblers, and best of all, a pair of California Quail attracted by cracked corn on the ground. Got to sketch one from the breakfast table.

Oh well, back to the drawing board. Gargoyles await.