Sister Karen teaches piano lessons, but I thought drawing a piano would be boring and cliche for her birthday card, so wanting to have more fun, I was thinking a bit about composer extraordinaire Beethoven and his monumental mane of hair flying manically around his head during a bombastic performance, but I had already done a t-shirt design for her students depicting his distinctive countenance.  Though also a bit of a cliche, my thoughts turned to penguins with their aptly suited tuxedo look.  In my search for reference, I found the Macaroni penguin... a perfect solution for the flamboyant, crazy, Beethoven-esque look I wanted for my enthusiastic conductor!!  An Opus is an artistic/musical composition of grand scale, so what better way to celebrate a life work of 57 amazing years!

I haven't posted anything in awhile, so these are lumped together from recent drawings.  The first is this year's birthday card to my sister Shauna, next is my Christmas card for 2018, and the last is a watercolor caricature for a client who has commissioned quite a few from me in the past.

I had some fun picking out a few of Trump's current, and also defunct associates from his political "mish mash of influence".  The Trump effect rarely seems to be a positive experience, as I have tried to convey in this dismal group.  I used Photoshop to add the background, which added to the ghostly, darker, drearier feel to the piece.  Top, L to R: Melania Trump, Robert Mueller, John Kelly, Sean Spicer.  Bottom, L to R: Steve Bannon, Mitch McConnell, Sarah Sanders, Paul Ryan.

A gentlemen hired me to do some drawings for a book he is putting together for his adopted nephew's Bar Mitzvah.  These all had significance when he was younger.

My sisters took me on a cruise for my 60th birthday in October, and I got a kick, (exasperated) from watching the morning ritual of makeup and doing hair.  Apparently women, like most men, suffer from some thinning (well…hair, unfortunately not bodily) as we mature, and I couldn't help but chuckle as the teasing, fluffing and spraying went on laboriously over an inordinate amount of time to add volume to their manes, and it came pretty quickly to my mind what this year's card would entail for Karen's birthday…some thick, luxurious bangs on a furry llama!

Commission for a Christmas present.  He likes to climb at Joshua Tree National Park.  She prefers to do the camera work.  They both create their own designs in pottery, so I included one of her cups.

Christmas card 2017.  Obviously, my Goldwing was my inspiration this year.

Lauren is leaving Mt Wilson and the Cosmic Cafe this December, and had always hoped to see a ring-tailed cat while living there.  Her wish was never realized, so I drew her one as a small consolation.

Wonder Women was amongst Kristi's favorite movies this year, so this was my weird solution for her card.