Recently I tried out something a little different with my Celtic artwork. A sort of abstract black and white piece with all different kinds of spirals. I called it Celtic Clockwork because it reminded me of all the gears inside a clock. You can see the slightly different versions that I put on t-shirts, versus greeting cards, etc.:




I also have framed and unframed prints available through my gallery at Imagekind:



Hope you like it!

First it was the boar and boar piglets (see previous posts for video links), but then last night there was a coyote dodging around here, and this morning, a bobcat! I got a few quick photos - the coyote was elusive and the shot isn't great quality but there's the added bonus of getting a scrub (blue) jay in the shot as well, which I didn't notice until later. (The old bathtub in the field is actually in a cow pasture and is for the cattle - heh.)



The bobcat photo was much better - he was just sitting on the hillside watching us. Seems like he waited for me to snap a photo and then jogged away.



I'm pretty happy to draw the line at animal close encounters with that. I did actually see a mountain lion (cougar) here a number of years ago, but those are really big and I'm not so much interested in seeing one of those close enough to get a photo, even with my zoom lens.

Recently, a number of wild boar have been coming down the hillside to root around for food. Luckily they aren't the HUGE ones, just mid-size, and they scare away easily. But the other day when I was watching them, I saw this small rust streak under the boar and I realized there were boar piglets running around too! I wasn't too successful with getting good photos at first, but then yesterday, the whole mini-herd came down and started rooting around and eating the fallen walnuts under the black walnut tree by our house (on the OTHER side of the fence, I'm happy to say.) And I was able to get some reasonable videos of the action - big boars and little colorful piglets!

Keep in mind that these videos were taken through the window screen, so they aren't as sharp as they could be, and there's really no sound, but the piglets are so cute - heh. Also, most of the clips are under 45 seconds long. Click here to see the videos. Enjoy!

I had been shopping for some new casual shoes/sneakers, but found nothing that I liked, or was in my size or price range, even at the outlet mall - sigh. I'm also pretty picky about what I was looking for, in a mundane sort of way - something normal, but passably interesting, comfortable, and definitely no plastic colors or gold lame' - LOL. Then, John happened to mention that people at work often buy shoes online at Zappos, and that they had free shipping both ways. (I'm probably the last person in the online world to have heard of Zappos, but I'm so NOT a fashionista - LOL.) So I dove into their web site and after just a bit of clicking around I found just what I was looking for - a cool suede sneaker from a maker called Simple Shoes (See photo at right.)

Although the ones I bought weren't from their extreme-ecological line, they have a great philosophy and some wonderful casual shoes with a focus on recycling and sustainability - check them out! Also, although I opted for the free shipping, Zappos expedited my order and I got my shoes in no time. They're comfy, a perfect fit, and they don't make my feet look at big as they really are - quite a... ahem... feat! (sorry!)

I'm still playing with the idea of angles and lines through shapes, and ended up creating what I'm calling "Leaf Mosaic" - another colored pencil piece. (The original is done on dusty blue-green charcoal paper, so no 'white' showing through.)



I've got it in my Gallery at Imagekind, and you can click the image or click here for framed or unframed prints.

I also have versions of this design on t-shirts and gifts and such, as usual - heh. Some samples:

I bought a set of 48 Prismacolor colored pencils and am already quite along the way of wearing them down to nubs! :-) One of the first pieces of art I did with them was this really colorful work called "Cosmic Ribbons" - I think I tried out at least 75% of the colors for this one - heh. The original is 14x10 on watercolor paper.



(Click the image above for prints via Imagekind.)

I've also got Cosmic Ribbons on stuff in my shop, for example:




(Click any of those images to see all the 'stuff' - includes things like mini buttons and refrigerator magnets - turn your fridge into an art gallery - LOL!)

Just 36 hours ago this streambed was all dry and rocky!



And just 36 hours ago the locals could have easily driven even a low-ryder through this road that goes through the stream bed. At the moment though, I wouldn't even try it with a big jacked up truck:



In any case, we're very happy to be seeing the stream again (it didn't get this big at all during last year's rainy season - no big storms to speak of), so I thought I'd share these photos with you all today. Happy Rainy Sunday!!

We're having high winds here this morning. In fact, one of those tin roof panels flew off this morning, so John went up there to reattach it and nail the neighboring roof panels down more tightly as well:



We're also expecting some heavy rain the next few days (another reason to fix the roof right now!) Maybe the next few days of rain will get the stream flowing - that would be a welcome sight again!

I must have walked by this tree a thousand times, but it never struck me as wild or alive as it did the day I took this photo:



It was set between two huge old Live Oak trees, and maybe the contrast between their deep evergreen leaves and the dark naked branches that reach both up AND down was finally enough to wake me up. I called it the Witching Tree. Spooky, powerful, different, and lone.

I also caught another photo while out and about:



This is called Barely a Fence, for obvious reasons. It's more of a visual barrier than anything else, because if a cow (or a rabbit for that matter) so much as breathed on it, it looks like it would just disintegrate! Ahhh, rural decay.

[Click on a photo if you're interested in buying framed or unframed prints - you can also see larger versions after the clicks too.]

I've done a somewhat minor redesign on my weblog at foxvox.org (of which this is a mirror). So if you want to see, just click here - read the latest post there for more details. Happy New Year!!

Happy Holidays Everyone! I hope to post a little more frequently in the future, but just in case I don't get a chance this week, click here to see our online greeting card for all you guys, from John and me. (Make sure you have javascript enabled for the full effect.) And I hope 2008 is spectacular for each of you!

I have a few new photos up in my gallery, all pulled from local scenery. VERY local. Our backyard local - LOL.

The first one is "Lunar Hilltop" - I loved the way the moon was hanging over what seems like a bald spot on top of the tree-covered hill! I chose to do it in black and white because I thought the golden-orange of the hills here at sunset was actually a bit much. I like the way the black and white looks much better!



The second one is a triptych of photos of our bare walnut trees against a cold sky. I altered the blue sky tones for each crop in photoshop, and I liked how the grey frame completed the cold, bare, wintery look.



The third image is just kinda kooky. It's a picture of some metal letters hammered into one of the telephone poles here. I'm guessing it's for the phone company, but loved the 'half' added here to the numbering system. Plus it looked so rustic in black and white.



Prints are available by clicking on the images if you're interested, but in any case, thanks for looking, and Happy December!

The Temples of Damanhur are amazing cave creations secretly built into the Italian hillside, by a 57-year-old insurance broker. Click the link - you've GOT to see these photos!! Wouldn't it be amazing if this kind of passion and art was put into all modern architecture? Just wow. Reminds me of the amazing Wieliczka Salt Mines in Poland - once they'd mined out the salt they used the space to create gorgeous opulent rooms.

I just sent out a holiday newsletter for my Art of FoxVox Shop. The newsletter includes highlights of the new Celtic porcelain ornaments and Christmas (and Yule/Solstice) greeting and note cards sets, the Celtic & Funny t-shirts, sweatshirts and other cool products offered (we have new keepsake boxes this year - very nice - lined in white velvet!), as well as an excellent coupon discount code! To break the suspense (which I'm sure is keeping you on the edge of your seat), instead of me repeating everything I just wrote, just CLICK HERE to read the online version of the newsletter if you're interested.

A recent black and white photograph I took (chrysanthemum flower), which I titled "Infinite Potential" because it looks like the petals are constantly unfolding from the center. (The original flower was part of a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums and purple and yellow irises that John brought home on Friday.)



You can click on the image to get a framed or unframed print, or to see a zoom of the photo.

The last few weeks I've been really focused on building a couple new websites, one of which required dusting off my old programming skills and learning a bunch of new ones as well.

Wine Taster Tees - This is a collection of wine designs that people offer on t-shirts, sweatshirts, keepsake boxes, ornaments, and other gifty type items. There's wine humor, wine snob designs, and tees for specific kinds of wines too. So if you're a wine type or know one, feel free to stop by and browse.

Art Up Your Walls - This site will feature one new art print every day or so, but also has browsable categories of artist, genre, and subject. (I'm particularly and geekily proud of this site since I had to learn how to create a database, import a datafeed into it, and then figure out how to access that information from web pages using php - google was definitely my friend - LOL. I also found a cool script for displaying zoom images of the prints in the category results - swanky!) This site is mostly focused on popular and classical artists, so there's lot there you might recognize. Also, all the prints are purchased and printed through Imagekind, and they do fantastic quality prints! Anyway - this site is just one of my ways of bringing a little more art into the world.

Winter Holiday Central - This is actually a site I created last year, but updated to include new holiday greeting cards and ornaments (including Yule/Solstice and Hanukkah themes), and new Christmas-y type links as well. (I have my traditional Christmas Cookie recipes there too.)

So, yeah, been a bit busy and very intensely focused the last few weeks. I think I need a break from squinting at the screen for so long!

This is my latest - just a simple Celtic Trinity Knot in golds and greens with knotwork accents. It seems very peaceful and goes along with my 'green' thing I've had recently - LOL.



Click on the image or click here to get the trinity knot on t-shirts (just the knot, no background) and gifts like keepsake boxes, cards, etc., or click here for unframed or framed prints.

(I also did a red and green version of it for things like Christmas Cards, etc. - you can see that in my Celtic Christmas shop!)

I happened to acquire a number of 16x20 canvases on sale the other day. They were just sitting there by my art table for a while until I had this strong urge to paint something GREEN. We don't have much that's green around here at the moment - the hills are all brown and beige, the live oak trees are all a DARK green, but not a LUSH green, and the leaves now falling off the black walnut tree out front are all yellow. So, I couldn't wait for the rainy season to start and bring everything back to life - I needed green NOW - heh.



The title seemed to be Green Future - in the optimistic ecological sense, but also in the immediate "the rainy season is coming" way. I like how the abstract style can really highlight color schemes and not distract with left-brain-recognizable objects.

Oh, and click on the image to buy framed or unframed prints from my gallery at Imagekind!

After much time off from posting to his site as a personal blog, John has rebirthed his domain as something he's been wanting to do for a long time. Actually, he originally bought the domain name, Parabolic Mirror, (many years ago) as a sort of spoof of things like the Daily Mirror tabloid, but the original idea for it didn't come about right away. Creative ideas have their own schedule, apparently!

In any case, it's now officially a site for news and political satire! Not just making fun of politics and news, but creating parody stories that step sideways while still incorporating the actual news in funny ways. :-) He's got a few posts there already, so stop by if you'd like a good chuckle: Parabolic Mirror. (Also, the Legend of the Green Dragon text-based rpg is also still available at the site - just click here - same place it was before!)