Love this picture

I found this picture in some book, ages ago, likely I got it from Goodwill.

I tore it out, and have had it framed in my home for years. I can't look at it without it making me smile.
It looks to me like the monkey is playing air guitar with the rainbow. I just love it, but it is a little small, and the paper quality poor etc. So, I am going to enlarge it and print it onto a nice watercolour paper - and I think it will look gorgeous when done. I can't wait.

My home and native land.

well, I am gently moving away from my Japan research and obsession and moving towards reseaching and developing work inspired by Northwest Coast Native Art. I was looking for some books to inspire me and found this which was good and I am still reading it. http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/HOLNWC.html

but what really was wonderful was Learning by Designing - Northwest Coast Native Indian Art. http://www.ravenpublishing.com/designvol1.htm

I also fell in complete love with this Haida Manga artist/founder Michael Yahgulanaas. His work reminds me of Georgia O'keeffe another favorite artist of mine/meets Hokusai/meets Haida. Incredible. Check out his work called War of the Blink and Red here. Incredible work. His website is www.haidamanga.com and his blog (with more incredible images of his shows etc.) Here are a couple of sample images from his work.

 

a beautiful glasswing butterfly. Amazing.

Nature inspires me. Here is a beautiful creature.

all about crows - the nature of things

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderofcrows/index.html

One of my children's stories, A Feathered Tale, has as the central character, a crow.  This program linked above is incredible. Did you know that crows are one of very few species that uses tools? (the others include apes, elephants, dolphins) But not only that - they can make and customize tools and do things that they have never been shown how to do! They can think many moves ahead. They are a social species and can recognize individual human faces in a crowd. They speak 2 separate languages one with the general crow population and one with the immediate family. They have over 200 distinct caws - each with a different meaning. They are extremely intelligent creatures. They will even bluff/lie to make a spying crow think they buried their cache in one spot  - in order to fool the crow and avoid the theft of their cache! Which is very interesting as my story is about Truth vs. Lies. Crows also have funerals and mourn their dead. You will never look at crows the same way again.  Remarkable creatures!  I have a feeling I am about to get working on this book's illustrations soon.

It is wonderful when you can fall in love with your characters and that they be inspired by such real marvels.