Dolphin overdose!

Recently I had a custom order for dolphins and it took many tries for me to get it right. Now I have a whole bunch of partially completed dolphin pictures that I am trying to turn into things because basically I filled an entire water color book with dolphins. Above we have a moon dream, a trip to Jamaica that my mom took (not done yet) and sleeping water woman...there are a whole bunch of dolphins in my shop now if you like dolphins.
I am not great at drawing from reality all the time so, I am not to happy with the trip to Jamaica so far, but my plan is to go through all the pictures and draw a whole bunch until I get them right. They look alright but, they don't look like the people that they are. My mom's friend Melissa, and a guy who drives a boat and his dog. I can't remember their names but one is Copper. I'll have to look it up. I will get back to you on that. Okay, the guy is named captain Ted aka Coppah and I don't know his dog's name.

Day to night...short animation...

I spent the afternoon working on some short animations I have had in my head for a while. When I figure out how I am going to put some music with these. I have a lot of video ideas... :) ... I think I might try to make one with a story. I have been working on some animations with music ideas in my head for quite a while these are my first attempts. Just took me about 2 hours to figure out how to get this video from my phone to my blog! Let me tell you modern technology and I do not always get a long...Unfortunately, the first one which I also think is the best one has my thumb in it!!!
I really used to like music videos. The first ones I saw were not great and, I didn't really have cable very often when I was young so, I didn't see that many. I also like classical music. And, have a theory that some classical music could really go with some great videos. I would like to combine the 2 the music I write is sort of a blues classical fusion. People who like blues say to me..."you are so good at classical music or, that is classical blues"  People who like classical say I am better at the blues. I have to say I think that my playing leans more to the classical. Also, I am a lot better at improvising or writing my own music then playing other peoples.
There are a lot of great animations and such on you tube. Also I recently discovered a guy called William Kentridge. You can see him on pbs a show called Art21. Anything is possible.
 I started thinking I wanted to make animations with music when I was in high school. I had a video camera with stop motion feature. My brother was playing with it while I was playing piano. The result was a strange and kind of funny video involving rocks with Mozart all mixed up in pieces in the back ground as a sound track. I was like we should make a whole bunch of those. I could write some music like that or some kind of music. Any way, I don't know what happened, got side tracked I guess...right now, I have a lot of time on my hands...so, this idea has sort of renewed itself. I guess a lot of people make these now...

Colorful, work in progress...

This is a work in progress. Calling it colorful for now, haven't really decided yet.

Love for Japan, ink and water color illustration, Japan relief

This is a print of an Aceo sized water color and ink illustration of the word love. This print is available for sale in my shop on Etsy. Proceeds from the sales of this print will be donated to Americares for earthquake relief efforts in Japan.
Recently some one bought one of these prints and wanted to know what the story is behind it. I wrote it out for them and posted it with the listing in my etsy shop. I thought I might post it here as well...
Originally I did not include the story behind this one because I was kind of embarrassed about it and I am not great at writing. However some one asked for the story as to how I came up with the idea for this print and I decided to share it because other people might be interested. The story is as follows.
During the time of the earthquake I was working at a Japanese/French cafe called Cafe Japon. So, I really wanted to do something in order to benefit people in Japan.
My first idea was a book mark with cherry blossoms and a Japanese saying that I had heard "fall down 7 times stand up 8". I really like this saying and still do because it is very applicable to some aspects of life and during certain times. I picked a book mark because it would be both affordable and useful. The prints came out terrible and after reading a little I decided I did not know enough about Japanese culture to really understand the significance of cherry blossoms or the saying well enough to use them. I started to think some of the earth quake victims may not want to stand up right now, they might want to lie down and be covered with blankets until they get well. I began to think that different things are needed at different times.
I tried a few other designs. I made 2 Aceos depicting cats a gray cat and an orange cat. I liked the way both of them looked but I wasn't happy with those either. They looked nice but they didn't really mean anything aside form I am trying to help which is good but, I like the people I work with a lot and I wanted to say something as well as make something I thought looked really good.
I decided on love because it covers everything. Life and love kinds of reminds me of the Kenny Roger's song about playing cards...You've got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them , know when to walk away, know when to run...Different things are applicable in different situations...Sometimes you have to fight for what you love, sometimes you have to compromise for what you love, sometimes it is a good time to stand up again, some times it is time to surrender. Love heals, up holds, creates, and provides what is needed.
Originally I wanted to write it in Japanese but, I really wanted to finish it and I wasn't confident in how well my Japanese writing would come out. So I decided that English would be okay.