Beach Girl

Size: 4 x 4 inches
Medium: Oil
Support: Multimedia Artboard

This is my entry for DSFDF Week 27-28 Challenge hosted by incredible artist Karin Jurick. For a change, I decided to use oil. Somehow this medium helps me loosen up and ignore the details.

A Passion for Painting Award

I was honored by my friend and very talented artist Lara Harris for "A Passion for Painting Award." Please take a moment and view her beautiful paintings.

Here are the rules:
- List 7 things your love.
- Put a link to the one who picked you.
- Choose 7 others to pass the award to.
- Notify them of the award.

The 7 things I love are:

1. Spending time with my cats. The daily grooming session is the happiest time for our cats and that also makes me happy somehow. Maybe the happy vibration travels through touch.
2. Going to the zoos and aquariums to watch animals.
3. Painting while listening to my favorite music.
4. Going to the museums and looking at great paintings and amazing Japanese miniature sculptures (called Netsuke).
5. Spending time with my family whether here or in Japan.
6. Taking a walk at the park and finding deer, bobcats, and other creatures.
7. Going to the beach and watching the waves.

The 7 artists I have chosen:
- Gail Ragsdale
- Kathleen Coy
- Mona Conner
- Erika Nelson
- R. Garriott
- Douglas Hoover
- Tom Pohlman

Update!
I also received a Passion for Painting Award from my fellow artists Vern Schwarz and the Lemonade Award from Liz Holm. Their works are just amazing. Please take a look at their blogs. You will enjoy. I promise!

Calico ACEO

Title: Calico
Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches
Medium: Acrylic
Support: Multimedia Artboard

This is not one of ours, but I just had to paint her. Love the light and shadow on her face that is also divided into two colors by the white nose. Very interesting marking for a calico!

This is on eBay. To see the listing, click here.

Another Cat ACEO

Title: Persian
Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches
Medium: Acrylic
Support: Multimedia Artboard

This is a close-up of a Persian cat. When I saw the picture at morguefile (site providing copyright free reference photos), I was mesmerized by her beautiful eyes. I just had to paint this beautiful Persian cat.

This one is on eBay. To see the listing, click here.

California Roll

Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches
Medium: Acrylic
Support: Multimedia Artboard

This is my entry for the Different Strokes from Different Folks blog run by amazing artist Karin Jurick. This is California Roll. It must be born here in California. I 've never seen it in Japan. In fact not many Japanese are familiar with Avocado, which is one of the indredients of this Sushi. My favorite sushi is nigiri with Hamachi.

Tagged...

Thank you Deb for tagging me! The rules are: go to the 6th photo folder in my computer, take the 6th photo and blog about it, then tag 6 people.

This is Benny. He is 18 years old and the oldest cat in our home. I remeber him as a young cat showing up in our yard with his mom and siblings. When his mom had another litter in our next door neighbor's yard, we took them all because he was about to call an animal control.

Three of the new litter found home at Tracy Chapman's estate, but they came back one month later due to a leukemia scare. Fortunately their leukemia test that was positive the first time changed to negative a few weeks later. This sometimes happens with kittens. Those three kittens found another home at our friend's in San Francisco. We ended up keeping 5 including him. They all turned out to be the sweetest cats. Now he is the last one we still have.

I'm not tagging anyone at this time.

More ACEOs

Title: Birman
Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches (ACEO)
Medium: Acrylic
Support: Multimedia Artboard

Title: Kyra
Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches (ACEO)
Medium: Acrylic
Support: Multimedia Artboard

I have just posted these two paintings on eBay. Hopefully they will sell. :) To see the listings, click the pictures.

The Winner Is...

Thank you all who sent me cards! As promised, the winner will get my original leopard ACEO shown below. All the others will receive one of my bookmarks!

This is how I did the drawing: placed all the cards in a big bag, took the bag to my hubby's office, blindfolded him, then had him pick one of the cards. And the winner is:

Hillary Miller

Congratulations Hillary! I will ship your ACEO this week. Bookmarks will also be going out this week. Thanks again for participating my 6-month blog giveaway.

Hana

Size: 8 x 10 inches
Medium: Acrylic
Support: Ampersand Gessobord

This is Hana. She passed on in January 2009. About 8 years ago, she started to show up in our backyard and spent all day sleeping in one of my flower pots. Every time we brought food to her, she hissed and tried to bite. One day, we brought her indoor and she immediately turned into a very friendly cat. She had never hissed at us after that. We concluded that what Hana really wanted was a home. Although she never liked other cats much, she loved human contact. We don't know her age. Her vet thinks she was an old cat when she passed.

The Wall

To answer Mona's suggestion, I took some pictures of our bedroom wall. These paintings used to be more spread out on three sides of the wall, but one night my husband decided to rearrange them. This is the result. It is not the most attractive arrangement, but we can now see them all while lying on the bed. It's nice to wake up every morning being greeted by our cats! :)

(The first picture looks warped because I had to connect two wide-angle pictures to show all pictures.)

(The bobcat and leopard are not ours. I wish they were though...)