GIVEAWAY WINNER!

Congrats to Lesley! Comment #17 - Winner of the New Friday Giveaways being hosted on my blog!

Lesley - Please email me solocosmo@gmail.com with your address so I can send you your print!

FRIDAY GIVEAWAY!

Every Friday for the past year I have been doing giveaways on my Facebook page on Fridays. I like to keep it simple, all you have to do to enter is comment. Facebook no longer allows you to simply host giveaways on your page, you have to go through a third party app now if you want to host a giveaway - which turns it into some sort of sweepstakes. I looked into some of the apps, and none of them seem to be what I need, I do not want to require anyone to have to 'share' or 'like' anything, I just want it to be really easy and fun.

From Today on I will be hosting these Friday giveaways here on my blog....hopefully it will also encourage me to post to my blog more often as I have been neglecting to keep everyone up to date on the move and new work ect ect...

So without anymore delay....FRIDAY GIVEAWAY TIME....This week I am giving away a medium sized print of my 'Mr. Fishy on His Own' . All you have to do to enter is to leave a comment below, if you are commenting as 'anonymous or unknown' you will have to leave me your name so I can have a name to post as the winner...Please comment only once to keep the odds fair. After 24 hours I will use a random number generator to pick the winner!!! I will post the winner tomorrow!

New work & Move update

Louis

and Domino

These two guys were created for a little boy named Evan. He loves dragons! They are made up of all sorts of bits and pieces of lizards, alligators, crocodiles, bats and this and that. I haven't ever done anything like them so they were a super fun challenge for me!! I am especially fond of Domino.

In other news only a week and a half till Texas! We are still so amazing at the opportunity to be building a house with the Phoenix Commotion. Even with all the tiles lined up to get us there I still feel like it's all some sort of dream that will vanish! I think I am most sad to see Sampson leave his school, I can only hope and pray that the transition is not too hard for him and that he can bond with his new teachers and classmates! (we love you Miss Hannah and Miss Cindy and everyone else! We will miss you!).

The kids and I fly into Texas on the 17th! I will stop taking orders in my etsy shop THIS FRIDAY. If you have your eye on something, now is the time! I am hoping to have my shop up and running again by Monday the 20th, even if it means working from my phone.

Marking today...

This is my beautiful son Sampson. Sampson will be 4 years old on May 9th. He is an amazing child. For those of you who follow my blog you may know that Sampson is Autistic. He sees the world in a different way than anyone else. He is obsessed with letters, numbers, and pattern. He can say all his ABC's and recognize letters out of order and spell things out. He can count to 100 and even count by 10's. He watches countless youtube videos on trains, letters and numbers and has a knack for memorizing things from the videos. He can also identify objects and animals and colors, all sorts of things. That's kind of amazing. In spite of all these amazing things that Sampson can do there are many things that are difficult for him (which I will not go into too much detail about). I try to focus on the things he CAN do and encourage him. He likes trains so we spend a lot of time at the train museum. He is attending a state funded special education pre school that has been amazing.

One of the hardest things for Sampson to do is to communicate with others. He has trouble turning all his words into sentences. He can identify an 'iguana' but can't find the words to tell me what he wants or needs. For all the words he has learned, there are many that he has 'lost'. Some words he learns and then never says again. Since he started school he has regained some of these early words. One word he said only once to my knowledge was 'Mommy'. he babbled it as a baby 'Mama' but around a year it stopped. I heard him say it once when my sister was in town, right after Juneau was born when I walked towards him at the zoo. He never said it again. I try to not think about it, but it's heartbreaking. I just want him to call me, to ask for me. Juneau calls me "mommy" all the time (she is 13 months old). As much as I love hearing my little girl say mommy, I have been waiting almost four years for my 'first love' to call me mommy.

Well I am marking today and sharing these things because today Sampson did say 'mommy'. I want to type about it, to share it because it means a lot. He was in the garden with Dad helping him water the tomatoes....Sampson calls them 'trees'. He was crouched down and holding the hose, his face near the ground watching the water. He enjoys seeing everything up close. He looked to the side a little (we call is his 'side eye', it's something he does to look at people without giving direct eye contact) and he said quietly 'Oh....is Mommy' and then turned back to the water. He didn't say it to me, or ask for me, or call me...but he acknowledged me as 'Mommy' with words...and that is enough. Even if I don't hear it again for another year, it was enough. Today was an amazing day.

Twirl

This weeks theme for Illustration Friday is 'Twirl' . We recently watched the full season of 'Life on Mars'. They continually refer to a girl as a 'twist' or a 'twirl'. I'm sure that I might have known it was used as slang in the 70's, but it wasn't a more common slang term that I was familiar with. They used it multiple times, so many times that all I could think of when I read 'twirl' was 'girl'. She actually started out with brown hair, but the piece was turning out so light I wanted her hair light as well so I redid it last minute.

Digital painting with photo collage, done with wacom tablet and Photoshop CS4. Any model credits can be found on my DA account.

Grounded - Illustration Friday

This weeks theme for illustration friday is 'Grounded'. I have had this idea since I read the theme. I am glad I made time for it in between commission work! Sometimes I feel like I get so caught up in life and work that I don't get to do all the ideas I want to. I know that's probably a common feeling for an artist.

This is a digital photo collage/manipulation with overpainting. All model credits can be found on my DA account here.

Messenger - Illustration Friday

This weeks theme for illustration friday is messenger. I had great fun doing the background of this one, and the little mouse. I struggled with her face a bit, it still seems a bit off to me! I am still happy with the whole feeling of the piece though! Digital painting & Photo collage/manip. Model credits can be found on my DA account.

In other news we are now only a month and a half away from our move from San Diego to Huntsville, Texas! We are boxing things little by little by little, and need to have another garage sale. Anyone in San Diego need a huge four poster bed? I know we won't be bringing it. Looks like the kids and I will be driving after all. Plane tickets + towing the car behind the moving truck was going to be too expensive! But I don't have to drive alone, my Mom will come in the car with me, the kids and the cats. My brother will drive with Chris. It will be nice to have my Mom make the trip with me. We will laugh a lot and we get along so well I know it will make the trip 100 times more bearable!

Still though, someone pinch me, because this whole move is still too exciting and wonderful!