And now for something completely different!

So, why so quiet, Xan?  Still recovering from the months-long portrait marathon??  Well, sort of, but that's not why.

Click here for more details, and to register!

I've been working on a fundraiser like you've never seen before.  Hyperbole?  I don't think so.  At least, I've never seen one anything like this before!

SEVEN artists (of which I am one) are offering pet portraits for this auction: it's all pet portraits.  Nothing else.

Born to Run is the rescue group I've been working with since last fall.  H and I offered to foster a greyhound coming from Korea, but that didn't turn out to be necessary.  Instead, we got Katie (then called Coco).  Our first foster dog.  Our first foster "failure" (meaning we adopted her ourselves after about a month!)

You can read more about the group on their website.  For now, I want to talk about the ART!

When I was collecting artists for this, I sent out invitations to a couple dozen of my list of favorites, and a few I discovered just looking around at the time.  I was blown away by the responses.  They're all SO different! (See samples and links to the artists here.)  Ceramic sculpture, batik, hand-thrown porcelain, paper mache, linocut printing and a classic graphite drawing.

What on earth was I going to contribute that would come up to the level of the varied uniquenesses?  I tossed around several ideas, each one more outrageously un-do-able than the last, and then it came to me.

Soft sculpture.  Yeah!

I'd done a bit of that, way back when, and really loved it, but moved on to new things (while I let my fingertips heal - I do not practice safe sewing!)  When the idea to use it for this jumped into my head, I got excited about the possibilities!  What style?  What materials?  Serious?  Silly?  Abstract??  Big?  Small?  Then I got to thinking about what kind of pet might be my assignment.  Heck, it could be an iguana or a ciclid! That opens up the possibilities even more!

I'm going to let you watch the process, when it happens, so stay tuned.  If you want to bid on my, or any of the other artists' offerings, go register for the auction, so you'll receive a notice to remind you when bidding starts on April 20th, at 9am Pacific time.

Next up: a return to Niccolo and MaeBella.