Kitten "Madame" - Boy or Girl?

I am so embarassed to admit that we may have made a mistake on the sex of our new kitten, Madame. I was so sure she was a female, but in my defense, she is a longhaired kitten and the naughty bits are not so easy to view. Recently my husband has said that he thinks she is developing into a boy. I checked again and I see what he means, but she still looks not so boyish, compared to her brother. So, I am taking both kittens to the vet next week for their rabies shots and we will let the vet decide, boy or girl. If a boy, Monet will be the new name.

Miniatures Show Opens and No Wildlife Today

Well, no wildlife between me and my car this morning. I was on time for opening the gallery.
We had a Private Collectors Preview last night at the gallery and the evening was wonderful......cool crisp air, lots of champagne and delicious tidbits to eat and of course, glorious miniature artworks.
Our opening reception for the general public and artists is on Sunday, from 3:00 until 6:00. All are welcome.

A Sea of Bears

QUESTION: What has four mouths and 16 feet? ANSWER: A momma bear and her three cubs.
Imagine my surprise this morning at around 6:00 am, as I walked out my backdoor and walked three feet over to my backporch steps and there at the bottom of the steps was a Momma Black Bear and her three cubs all eating my garbage. Now I know you are thinking, cute little cubs, but these guys were two year old cubs about the size of Rottweilers. They all looked up in surprise at me as I shrieked OMG and made a hasty retreat to the house. As I tried to shut the kitchen door, a cat toy got lodged between the door and doorjam (just like the Keystone Cops) and I could not get the door closed, all the while thinking that momma bears are very protective and will attack if they feel their cubs are in danger. I finally got the door shut in time for my sleepy husband to come to my aid, not knowing what in the world was going on. Ok, I know what you are thinking......the big bad snake lady is a sissy after all. No time for the camera today, but it is now charged and ready for action in case they come back in the morning for the other bag of trash. Poor husband.....what a mess to clean up today.

Snakes that Play Dead

I caught my two feral cats in the yard poking at this dead snake. So I scooped it up in a net and placed it in a jar for the husband to identify when he got home. I knew it was not a typical black snake, the tail did not taper down to a thin point and his head looked odd somehow. Sure enough, the husband believes it to be a Hog Nosed Snake and he recalls reading that they will roll over and act dead as a defense tactic. Image how surprised I was when he started moving around in the jar. To test the theory, we poked at him and sure enough he did a death roll and played dead for about 15 minutes. You will notice his nose points upward in the one photo. Look at the exaggerated open mouth with the tongue sticking out. Also, no fangs or teeth. I have never been afraid of snakes and won't kill one if it is non poisonous, so we drove him to a remote area away from my house and released him. He looked very similar to the pond snake we had last year, thus in case we are wrong about his type, did not want him in my pond eating my fish.

Oh! We are hanging the miniatures show over the next two days. The private collectors preview (invitation only) is Thursday, the show opens on Friday and the artist's reception is on Sunday. Don't expect any blogging til next week end.

Miniatures Judging Today & Amazon Painting

I spent the entire day today handling the 3rd Annual Miniatures Show judging process with Guest Judge, Marilyn Milici. It is very interesting to watch and listen to the Judge's thoughts. Good friend Jeanne Mitchell acted as the judge's assistant, recording the winner information and presentation of artworks, while I was busy preparing a judge's luncheon. It's a two hour drive out here from Alexandria and the Judge gets VIP treatment from Ice House Gallery. I did not get any painting time today, but the Amazon Warrior background is getting very close to finished. I made great progress on it the other day at the gallery studio.

Final Reenactor Boy

I always put a finished piece above the fireplace on the mantel for a few days just so I can glance at it when I am not really thinking about it. This really helps me to find flaws. Guess what? I found one on the Reenactor Boy. If you check back at the older blog postings and the photos of this piece, you will notice that his black hat is the same value as the background trees on the house side of his head. I spotted this while watching TV and catching up my reading one evening. This is just the sort of thing we don't see even if we are searching for errors, but will jump out at you when your mind is on something else. So I have lightened the background trees on that side of the hat by about three values. His hat now reads as a black hat and not a continuous blob of dark value. At the same time, my husband suggested I add a powder horn, which a hunter would have had with him if he were carrying a black powder rifle. I now call this piece complete. I have already received an offer for it, but am thinking I would like to hang onto it and try to license the image or get it into prints.

Miniatures Show Crush Time

Well, the mini show is in full swing...judging was supposed to happen this past Tuesday and was delayed until this coming Tuesday for a few reasons. I hope the miniature artists waiting to receive word of acceptance won't be too upset. I have had a number of health issues as well as a family loss. And then there was a misprint in one prospectus, (we don't think any of these actually went out, but I wanted to allow a little more time to be fair to all artists. ) I had fortunately scheduled things so that there is always a plan B and lots of time to reschedule all parts of the show. We are looking at having 75 artists exhibiting this year. If the economy picks up and sales are higher this year, I will add a new prize catagory for next year's show.