Last December, I corraled my youngest son Austin into drawing a tree on the studio wall for me when he was home from college. Austin graduated and is off in his adult life now, working as a project engineer for McCarthy construction in New Port Beach; part of the team building the new hospital tower for St. Jude's Hospital in Fullerton.
Architecture is Austin's art form, but clearly all those art lessons I paid for when he was a child paid off. He can still pick up a piece of chalk and deliver. Austin added another tree in the corner of the room for me so I could put up the owl that his older brother Evan made when both boys came by for a visit early this summer. It is a rarity to get both boys home at the same time, and a treat to get them to play with me in the studio. Requires a bit of arm twisting to actually get them to join me, which is otherwise known as making them suffer for
my art, but there was a lot of laughter in all that suffering. Now, in between the many projects, I am busy making the ceramic pieces to fill in my small woodland forest and will eventually mosaic the entire wall in some sort of forest mural.
Have added bluejays and a small fox so far.
Made this piece for my girlfriend Geri's daughter as a baby shower gift. Was having a fabulous time making it until time to grout. Used antique white which would have gone with the baby's white furniture. Looked horrible! Excavated it. Grouted it in Alabaster which I thought would be the better color. Wrong! Excavated it again and used good old Delorean gray. Bingo. Whole exercise was a terrible nightmare, but proved to me beyond the shadow of a doubt that E600 glue can stand any endurance test! To make the jungle animals I use cookie cutters I've cut out of flat clay that I then sculpt and give two dimension to. Mirror was given to Dr. Ale Rincon at her baby shower, and now resides in baby Oscar's room. 
