After last years trip to Thailand with her sister followed by her third trip to Brazil, Lauren needed to replenish her cash reserves, and decided to renew her ties up on top of Mt. Wilson working at the Cosmic Cafe on weekends.  They are allowing her to use a little cottage at no charge whilst gainfully employed, but it had not been occupied for some time.  In desperate need of a deep cleaning, I went with her on two occasions to sweep, scrub, swab, and sanitize the place, and she was able to purchase some carpet seconds to lay down and help make the place her little home away from home.

In need of reliable, but fairly inexpensive transportation with good gas mileage, she has been thinking about buying a motorcycle to get up and down the mountainside, so that made it easy coming up with the idea for this years birthday card.  Since the mountains provide the occasional bear visitation, this cartoony and happy element was an easy add in with the bike.  Hopefully this doesn't give her ideas about how to drive a motorcycle!!!  ;-)

I was contacted to draw a "not so cartoony caricature" as a gift for a gentleman retiring from a company after 32 years.  Got this done fairly quickly and the woman who hired me seemed pleased, but how HE  likes it may be another story all together. :)

Since Kristi and her sister spent three months in Brazil recently and it's the season for Carnival/Mardi Gras, I considered the ornate masks worn during the celebrations and how Kristi's blue eyes would look beautiful underneath, so that is the theme for her birthday card this year.  She favors black and deep pink, hence the major colors chosen to compliment the look.  I wanted to emphasize the mask and eyes without drawing the whole face and head, the rest being filled in with imagination.

A musician called and is doing some sort of project…I didn't really understand what it is exactly, but this is going to be the cover for his presentation.  I was originally going to do this in Prismacolor, as that was what he wanted to pay for, but I decided on my own that it needed to be done in watercolor, though I won't charge extra.  I'm glad that I made this decision, and he said it was beautiful and better than he imagined.  That's what I like to hear!!

My sister Karen is always on the go and very hard to track down, even by phone or texting, so for this year's birthday card I thought of the Hummingbird, flitting from place to place in a rather manic manner, ending only when nestling for the night.  The whole process begins before dawn and repeats daily!!

Hollywood Hydra…"cut off the head" of a wacky "celeb monster" and two more appear and continue to create hot messes, bedlam and controversy.  Though many heads could be represented on this worm, I chose five that seem to be at the top of the charts for the moment.  For those that find my likenesses lacking, they would be Nicki Minaj, Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, Kim Kardashian, and Katherine Heigl, done in ink and watercolor.

Love or hate these two somewhat androgynous train wrecks and all the attention they garner, I couldn't resist adding to the cacophony and have some fun with their images.