New Years Promo

Welcome and Happy New Year!


Here's my NEW illustration
for the NEW Year's promo postcard!

It is based on the Chinese calendar, where each year is named after an animal in a twelve-year cycle.


How did "animals" get selected to
represent years in the Chinese calendar?

One legend tells the story about a Jade Emperor who created a Chinese calendar to tell time. On his birthday, he proposed the animals compete in a swimming race across a fast-flowing river.

The first twelve animals to cross the river would be awarded a year to their name. First was rat, followed by ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. To this day, the Chinese calendar has followed this cycle of years named after these twelve animals.


2008 begins the cycle with the
year of the Rat. Here is a sketch
of Rat from the original painting.

To find out which animal year you were born in, you can visit Topmarks site
and type in your birthday for the answer!

I'm a monkey.

I use this art in my email signature.

Thanks for visiting my blog ... best wishes for 2008!

Studio Makeover

The studio got a makeover at the end of 2007.



I painted, organized, and added new magnetic strips from IKEA.
These handy strips make displaying art a snap.
New on display below
(center) is my holiday promo art.












It's painted in acrylics on Arches Watercolor buff paper.
The original measures 14" X 21". Even with the larger size, the last animals on parade were challenging to paint!

Here's a closer look at the last three animals,
each is only one inch tall on the original art.
Good thing they make tiny paintbrushes!






To the left of my holiday promo art is my
Picturebook Artist's winter art post. Let's zoom in...