Surtex booth #564!

It's that time of year again when most of the artists I know are in panic mode. That's right, Surtex is just around the corner! Surtex is one of the biggest shows for licensing artists. It stands for "Surface and Textile" design and all the manufacturors will be there looking for art to put on their products. My agent Debby will have all my work up in the Blue Sky Art & Design booth, number 564, so be sure to stop by! The National Stationery show is at the same time and in the same building: the Javitz Center in NY, so that is a chance to meet with all the clients who make cards and stationery products too.

I'm lucky in that I don't have to prepare my own booth, but I am trying to get as much new work done as possible. It's a busy time here as well, because Ian is graduating high school and there is all the excitement that entails! There are so many things to do; scholarships to find, housing to check into, proms, activities, it never stops!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all my friends who celebrate it, and happy Spring to everyone else! We are ready for Spring here. There was actually some snow yesterday, but it all melted and Mr Right had to do the season's first lawn-mowing today. Such is Colorado in April!

Juxtaposition

Imagine my pleasure the other day when I walked into Michael's and saw my "Draw Baby Animals" book next to my dear friend Barbara Lanza's "Enchanting Elves" book! I wish we could have been standing side by side ourselves, but our books will have to act as stand-ins. It is very hard to get books placed in Michaels and Hobby Lobby (my book is there too). This is the first of my four books to make it there!

Underwater Astronaut

Today was a very exciting day in Margaret's WAVE training. They were taken to the Scuba center to do the underwater training like real astronauts. Margaret had never tried Scuba diving, so she was very excited!

Here is Margaret's team: Kyle, Margaret, Mary, and John. They had to design some constructions that could be made with PVC pipe and then assemble them underwater. This taught them some very good teamwork skills, because you can't talk to each other down there! WAVE teaches the kids lots of skills that will be useful their whole lives: problem solving, teamwork, and leadership, as well as things like using the scientific method, etc.

The Scuba instructor, Gerry, gave them instructions beforehand. Margaret loved being able to breathe underwater, although all the kids had trouble with the pressure in their ears.

This picture is a little hard to see. They had a viewer that the parents could put in the water and look through to see what the kids were doing. I stuck the camera in there to take this photo. That's Margaret with the green scuba tank, and I think the other swimmer is Kyle. They managed to get their constructions together, although it took longer than the allotted time because the pipes kept separating. However, they were the last team in the water, so the teacher gave them extra time to finish because nobody else was waiting for a turn. Many thanks to Mr Peterson and Webber Middle School for setting up such a great program!