She's Here!

Our baby girl Tessa arrived on April 26th! We got to bring her home yesterday afternoon. We're tired, happy, frustrated, confused, and thrilled! I made this little rubber stamp print about a week before she was born. Here's a photo of the block made from Speedball Speedy Carve.

Welcome home Tessa!

Happy Earth Day!

It's the end of Earth Day- so, actually it's Earth Night! Here's a photo composite image made from a loose stamped and painted piece, and a drawing of stars.

The concepts behind Earth Day are really important to me but I wasn't able to do anything specific to celebrate today. Just dedicating one day a year to the beauty and health of our planet is obviously not enough to make a difference. But wonderful people are making big and small changes to improve our world daily. Knowledge about the health of our planet  is so much more detailed now than when I was a kid. In the 1970's I remember my father ranting about people who refused to believe that global warming was a reality. We've come a long way in understanding our impact on our world.

One of my favorite photo books about our planet was published in 1988- amazing that it was that long ago! It's called The Home Planet, edited by Kevin W. Kelley. There are beautiful photos taken from space, but I especially love the quotes by astronauts and cosmonauts. These are emotional statements made by people far from home who were able to look back at the Earth and see it  as a whole. The quote in my picture by Edgar Mitchell was taken from this book. I wish someone would make a new version of The Home Planet with new quotes!

Mobile finished!

Here's the sunshine! This was really fun to put together although I had to rework it because my original layout was too long- you had to practically stand inside the mobile to open the drawers of the dresser. Now it's up and out of the way. I hope it's low enough to catch some sun though the window for the prisms to make rainbows!

And here it is in my studio with my big pregnant belly. My due date is in one week!

Sunshine and Rainbows

I was too busy to work on the mobile for a while, but finally it's coming together! I felt like I was channeling my inner 12-year-old while painting these rainbows. I've painted all the parts for 2 sunshine mobiles and I just started putting one of them together.

Here's my assistant Zoe helping me with the beads and wire. Years ago my mother gave me a bunch of brand new chandelier crystals. I thought it would be fun to incorporate them into the mobile along with other pretty beads. That way we can have real rainbows made by the prisms in addition to my painted rainbow.