Here’s the last Animals for Animals painting that went up for public sale – a fruit bat! A tip of the hat to Jenn, who suggested the concertina.
Thanks to everybody who purchased one of the animals this month; thanks to you I’ll be able to donate at least $550 to Heifer International (I had to raise a bit past that to cover all the transaction fees from Paypal, Etsy, and my postage service).
As soon as the deposit clears, I will be donating the money to Heifer for a Knitting Basket, which represents two llamas and two sheep, and a Hope Basket, which will go towards some rabbits and chickens.
You’ll also be seeing an owl and a dormouse posted here soon (if the people who asked for them are okay with the world getting to see them once they’re finished!).
If you’d like more information on Heifer International, they’ve got a great website, and their print catalogue is the only charity publication that elicits smiles from me when it turns up in the mail.
A little bit late, but better than never! It’s rather hard to draw Ariana smiling.
I’ve had A Trying Week between some runaway freelance work and putting all the orders I can into the mail before Christmas hits. Tomorrow’s probably your last day to order something from me and have it turn up in time (barring USPS complication, mind you), so go nuts.
Thanks all of you who’ve bought something from me! That money goes directly into the Keep Dylan From Starving fund these days, and it’s a pleasure to send nonsense out into the world.
The penultimate Animals for Animals watercolor! Next I’ll do a bat, and then I have one or two that have been specifically commissioned (I’m workin’ on em gang, don’t worry!) and won’t be for sale.
…why, what else did you think hens would read? Tolstoy? I doubt it.
This piece does double-duty as part of 12 Days of Periscope Christmas over at ComicsAlliance. Thanks to Laura Hudson for coming up with the brilliant notion of hiring us all on to illustrate the classic carol all comic-book style.
Joy, shipmate, Joy!
(Pleas’d to my soul at death I cry,)
Our life is closed, our life begins,
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
She swiftly courses from the shore,
Joy, shipmate, joy.
Walt Whitman
photo by Davie;
——
In the contemporary Methodist tradition, the third Sunday in Advent is the week of Joy. Advent used to be a much starker time, focusing on the end of the world and the coming day of reckoning, rather than anticipation of the arrival of an infant Christ. I was struggling with, for this week’s poem, whether to trend towards the Joy or the End.
But why choose, when you can just have Walt Whitman? (Next year: Emily Dickinson.)
Today’s Animals for Animals: musical bees! Once I had the Morning Glory Victrola idea I couldn’t help myself, even though I know that fewer people are obsessed with cute insects. Up for sale at Etsy.
Bees are the second animal I’ve painted that Heifer International actually deals with (although granted, not bumblebees like these)! Apiaries are apparently an amazing income supplement in rural communities, and with honeybees on the wane, encouraging cultivation is more important than ever.
Wednesday’s animal was: Gaming Rats.
I realized after painting it that it’s a chillingly accurate psychological portrait of my family’s game nights. My dad is a tender-hearted pacifist who refuses to adopt the ruthless capitalist strategy necessary to win at Monopoly. Whereas my mom is a heartless predator, and I’m her cheerful apprentice.
I’m knocking at the door of my $500 goal! Yay!