This must be my week for giraffes. I finished the giraffe mural picture and now I have just found out about an amazing project involving giraffes. It seems that someone named Ola Helland bet his friend that he could collect one million hand made giraffes by 2011. Anyone and everyone can send in one or more giraffes to his web site: www.onemilliongiraffes.com. The giraffes can be drawn, painted, sculpted out of any material (there is one sculpted out of a banana). The only caveat is that it has to be a hand made giraffe.....nothing store-bought or computer-generated. I took a copy of the giraffe I just finished and did a little embellishing on it and then sent it along to Ola in Norway. As Ola says on his website "turn off the TV and draw a giraffe." Even if you don't send one in, at least go on to the website and take a look at all the gorgeous, funny, creative, inventive giraffes (he has collected over 500,000 so far) that are posted there.

Snow Day

Brrr, it's cold outside so I have been looking for a picture of someplace warm. This is a small-scale mural I painted a few years ago for a client's beach house. Can you feel the tropical breezes yet?

The giraffe tile mural

My partner, Tony, and I have been working on an interesting project, off and on, since 2006. This project is in the home of a woman whose father was a big game hunter in the 1970s. As an homage to her father, the homeowner is redecorating her home in a "Safari" theme. One of the things that we are working on is a collaboration with my sister and brother-in-law, Meredith and Mark Heywood of Whynot pottery: I have designed and drawn a mock-up for a mural for the kitchen which Meredith and Mark are going to bring into being in the form of a hand-made, carved tile backsplash. We have been taking measurements, tossing around ideas, making glaze samples and trial drawings for over a year and we delivered the final drawing to Meredith and Mark today. Now that my part of the process is over I can't wait to see the final product. I neglected to mention that the subject matter for the backsplash involves a giraffe eating from an African Acacia tree out on the African veldt. Here's the giraffe's face......