Long Lasting...

I have a group show coming up at the Alcove Gallery
The theme is Willie Wonka, so I'm doing three pieces that are these kind of ads on old wood. I'm cutting out the wood to layer the piece, a lot like the old Alice Cooper piece I did. Here's the sketch for the first piece...
And here's the frame.
A couple of days ago Mike ran into this guy down by our mailboxes. He took this pic with his camera phone
I searched Google images for something that would really show the detail on it. Here's what I found. I'm totally arachnophobic... I literally got woozy just looking at the blurry pictures on Michael's phone. He was going to bring it home to get better pics of it, but he thought I might have a heart attack and die.

So out of curiosity, I looked up some info on tarantulas and I found out they're really harmless to humans. However, It was really interesting to find out about the tarantula hawk. I had taken the picture below a few months ago. We have a few of these things hanging around our backyard sometimes. This one was on our retainer wall. I didn't know what it was at the time I took the picture ( just dug on the colors in it), but apparently these things wait around for tarantulas, sting them & paralize them, drag them into a burrow, then lay their eggs on the spiders still-warm body, and THEN somehow lock them inside the burrow to act as the host for their future family. I'd rather tangle with a tarantula, thank you.


What is it with the creepy crawly bugs around here?

Halloween

I wonder.... if I start brainwashing him now, and dressing him as a pirate EVERYDAY... would he maybe grow up thinking he really IS a pirate? Damn, that'd be cool...

...something to consider.

Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Jacob's first birthday

First, I'd like to preface this post by saying what a wonderful Husband Michael is. He totally surprised me with roses the other day. Thanks Hon, (and yes, this is a cheap attempt to suck up for more flowers in the future)
This afternoon we went over to my brother's house for Jacob's first birthday. Since Jacob's birthday is so close to Halloween, Lorena (my sister-in-law) turned it into a really cool Halloween birthday party. We dressed Dyl up as a pirate, and really, does it get any better than being a pirate? He totally got into character, and became a very contemplative pirate...

perhaps wondering why Mommy hadn't ironed his hat...
Here's my brother Josh and his son Jacob...
the man of the hour...
Hub and Bodie...
Had such a great time, can't wait to dress Dyl up again to go trick or treating. Oh, one side note... Dylan was so proud of his carved pumpkin from the previous post that we set them out front so everyone in the neighborhood could enjoy them. That night a little animal came and ate the face off of his pumpkin. Dyl was devistated... lots of tears shed in honor of his pumpkin.

October things....

I guess probably the whole country knows that California is on fire right now. The air is so smoky, I've totally locked the boys indoors. It's really awful watching the news. This reminds me so much of the fires in 2003. At that time we had just moved in to our first house, and one of the fires burned up over 300 homes in the neighborhood. It was an incredibly scary feeling seeing the sky turn black & knowing the fire was roaring through the neighborhood. I remember huge pieces of ash and wood and people's lives raining down from the sky, and seeing the fire itself between the homes across the street. Trying to pack up pictures, artwork and the cats in case we had to get out of dodge. This time we're incredibly fortunate that none of the fires are burning directly near us, but it's still frightening seeing those images on the tube, and not knowing when it will end. Michael's all tripped out because he does a lot of work up in Arrowhead (he's an appraiser for B of A), so he's really familiar with those neighborhoods that are burning. Man, I hope the next few days bring a little relief to things.
We got a couple of new pieces of art, A handmade uke by Kevin Titzer,

and "Four Ghosts" by Jim Houser

And I just sent off "Sausage Queen" to be in the "Picks of the Harvest: Chicago Invasion" show at DvA Gallery.
Things are good on the home front. Bodie had colic for the first few months of his life, and it would get really frustrating after a day of screaming. There were a few days that I was in tears, wondering if it would ever get better. He totally turned the corner last week. There are some fussy times still, but nothing like those really bad days. He also started sleeping from 10 pm to 6 am. Man, Dylan didn't sleep through the night until I was pregnant with Bodie, so that's HUGE! Dylan just gets more & more fun. The older he gets, the more he understands. Plus he's talking a lot now, he's really a funny little kid. Here' s some pics of him helping bake a "Daddy Cake".

mmmm.....chocolate, now there's a man after my own heart :)

This past Sunday we went to the pumpkin patch with the Soto's. Here in Yuciapa we have this super cool family owned pumpkin patch/christmas tree farm. When we moved here I'd had visions of this being a family tradition, but we heard this is the last year for the patch... they apparently sold out to Target. I'm usually a fan of Target, but I'm pretty pissed off about this...
Anyway, Mike's parents took Bodie for the morning, so we could have some one on one with Dylly that day. Jeff & Jennifer brought Shannon's wagon for the kids to ride in.
This place is a kids paradise, complete with monkeys dressed in cowboy garb.
Dylan shaking hands with the monkey.

Shannon and Dylan dancing to some good ol' hoedown music...

pony rides...

jumpers...
family pic (sorry Bodie) amongst the pumpkins...

The next morning we carved...



our pumpkins. I stole the Jack Skellington idea from the pumpkin patch. I'll use it as a vase to hold flowers.
And lastly, here' s Bodie and his crazy hair.

Good times

The other night Hubby and I put the boys down and decided to actually make a little time for ourselves. We laid out a great spread of yummies, opened up some wine, put in a movie and just hung out. It was awesome.
One of the things I wasn't really prepared for with having children was finding out how easy it is to totally lose yourself. You just sort of forget to make time for yourself and one day you feel like your own life has stopped. It is totally and completely about them. And for the most part, I guess that's how it should be.... but sometimes I need a life outside of being a mom, so I think it's really important for Michael and I to do little things like this every once in awhile.

We hooked up a playdate last week when Jeff got back into town. I was really excited to hear about his trip to New York, but we didn't get to get into it really. The playdates usually just turn into craziness just trying to keep up with Dylly and Shannon. It's really cool to see them having so much fun with each other.

Here's a super cute picture of Jeff and Jenn.

Playing chase in the backyard.

I guess it's actually kind of a nice thing to get together and not talk about work, but instead just slow down and hang out with the babies....

Yesterday was Michael's 35th birthday. It's pretty crazy to me to think we've been together since he was 24 and I was 23. Man, it's true... Time does fly. Our good friends Sloan and Joseph came down the hill to help celebrate. We were also celebrating the final days of Hubby's fertility,
as he's getting "the snip" tomorrow. (No more Carrillo babies for us, thanks!)

Sloan and Joseph are Bodie Bear's Godparents.

Our next door neighbors Tom & Bonnie AKA "The Poopies" dropped in with an ice cream cake from Coldstone creamery. Our friends rock.

Happy Birthday Bunches!

So after everyone headed out, we bathed the boys, put them to bed and chilled out in the living room, where we were greeted by this fellow. Aren't these guys supposed to be poisonous? Or is that just a myth? Whatever the case, I wasn't chancing it. I leapt onto our countertops and made Michael deal with him. All those creepy crawly little legs give me the willies.


eeeew.

The Birth of a Painting

Thought I'd post a series of pics taken of the sausage painting in the making. I wouldn't say I really have a method to my painting. I kind of just start in one area, and fill in the blanks as I go. When I'm painting on a personal level, I don't always work everything out in the sketch, I like to let a few things happen along the way.
Transfering the image onto the wood



Wasn't really happy with the background color. Since I would be using a lot of reds in the sausages and details, I thought a nice green would be better....
Throwing down on the skin tones, and some splashes of permanent ink. It bleeds through the end result, helps with the aged look I like to get.


Then I start making some decisions on where the accents and type will go...
pencilling in the type....
added a few more weenies, because really... you can never have too many....
viola. Finished up with a little aging.
A close up of the Queen.
So there. That's how I make a painting :)
Michael made me this really large wood canvas to paint on. It's sitting in our garage beckoning to me everytime I pass it. I'm actually really intimidated by painting large. But I think I'm going to try and tackle my fears on that one next.