AH'M THE TUHMINAYTAH AHND AH'LL BE BAAHHHCK.

I did not end my previous blog post with that statement but I should have. I didn't realize I'd take a months-and-months long break from posting.

What the hell has been going on with me these last 10 months!?!?

I toured the world with my husband for 3 months.

The week after we came back from our trip I got royally *#@#^&!ed over by Bank of America. My identity was stolen, someone went into Philly with a fake ID of me, withdrew ALL of my money, bought money orders, and went shopping. It was an inside job. I had detectives helping me out to find the person responsible. Finally Bank of America told me it was an inside job and one of their employees had given up my information. But they couldn't tell me the name of anyone intolved (so I could prosecute the hell out of them) due to respect of privacy. Yet they didn't make my life very easy while all of this was going on. Unbelievable.

They did refund my money after 32879134 pissed-off calls from me cause I gots billz ta pay, and then they complained that they worked on my case alllllllll weekend- boo hoo! What an inconvenience!- and finally came to the conclusion that it was not actually me who withdrew my money.

Obviously I am no longer a customer there.

I painted two 4'x8' graffiti-style murals to install in my family's dance studio.

(As you can see, this is VERY different from my normal style. While being super fun, it was also pretty difficult. 
Challenging, but in a good way. Always good to expand your horizons, right?)

My fantastic husband took me to see Weird Al for my birthday in October: 

I ran my first marathon:

In November I painted most of my house (I talked about doing so in this post):

I redesigned and added some recipes to my silly Flavor blog:

(and will soon get rid of Colorful Kitchen and put that info over on that blog).

I failed at 2011 in 2011 but have been managing to continue de-cluttering and getting rid of things here and there and will continue to do so in 2012. (I will not be counting though.)

I also failed to obtain enough applications to pass the Pollinator license plates I'm working on, so I've been continuing to find ways to spread the word about them.

I winter-sowed some seeds again.

I just finished a commissioned piece of artwork (which will get its own post after the recipient receives it, since it's a gift).


And... that leads up to now. I hadn't worked on a drawing or painting in at least 6 months and really had no inspiration to work on anything. When I was asked to do a drawing of some bees, I realized I better hurry up and find some inspiration to get the drawing done. Once I was finished with it and happy with the result, I realized how much I've missed drawing. I would love to hammer out a bunch relatively soon, but all that time off must have made my drawing muscles atrophy and thus... my hands are still pretty sore. SAD. Looks like I need to build up those calluses again!

Now that I'm inspired and working on some new stuff, I hope to post more often :)

Another great item from BuildASign! :)

I received the last of my promotional items in the mail from BuildASign.com! It's a fully customized aluminum license plate!

You can go on BuildASign's website and create a fully customized license plate, or personalize one of the many templates they have available. Way cool!

While I can't legally put this on my car and drive around in the state of Virginia (a REAL plate is required on both the front and back of the car here), it's going to be a wonderful item to have with me for people to touch and feel when I'm out promoting the plates. I was squeeing with delight when it arrived in the mail and I pulled it out of the packaging! It's so cool to see it in person, to get a real feel for how it's going to look when I finally get these things passed into legislation, and BuildASign did a great job with the print. The plate is sturdy and feels like if I have to it around to a lot of events, it won't get scratched up in the process; the ink most certainly does not feel like it's going to easily start rubbing off or anything like that.

(Oh, one thing my husband pointed out- he asked why Virginia wasn't centered. That was definitely not Build-A-Sign's fault, that was all me- when I was building the template I just tried to make sure everything that I wanted to fit on the plate was within the bleed area, I didn't even really look at where things were centered. My fault, not theirs!)

I haven't mentioned the plates much since I created their own special website, www.PollinatorPlates.com . Right now the goings-on focus only on the state of Virginia, and I know I have readers from other places :)  But if you're in a state that you think would enjoy showing its love of pollinators via fancy-pants vehicular accessory, by all means let me know. We can research how to get one passed in your state and I'd love to work on another new and unique design!

"In The Waiting Line" Operation Fill-A-Frame #6

http://www.etsy.com/listing/67892531/in-the-waiting-line-2-swallowtail-study

Operation Fill-A-Frame #6 is complete! This one is very similar to #5 and thus has the same title (with a 2 at the end). "In The Waiting Line 2" is another butterfly and caterpillar study, this time featuring the Tiger Swallowtail, also known as the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

Just like the Monarch "In The Waiting Line 1", the mat of this picture is outside of the glass, not under it. (It feels like a hard wood or plastic and is painted.) The two drawings are on a single sheet of Canson Recycled Bristol art paper, and the drawing was created with ink and my Forest Choice colored pencils.

This was another quick one, and thus, is a cheap one! $25 for this framed original drawing in my Etsy shop- you can see the listing here :)
http://www.etsy.com/listing/67892531/in-the-waiting-line-2-swallowtail-study

Man, oh man, did I learn a LOT while researching this piece.

First of all, let's talk about this caterpillar.
Years and years ago I painted a swallowtail caterpillar- does this guy look familiar?

He is, indeed, a swallowtail caterpillar. When I took the original photo of him and looked him up, that's what I learned. It made sense because the year I found him, our yard was covered in yellow tiger swallowtail butterflies.
BUT
It turns out, he's NOT the caterpillar of the tiger swallowtail. Nope. (It's very easy to get confused because if you do a Google image search for Tiger Swallowtail Caterpillar, just "swallowtail caterpillar" is included in the search and pictures of those guys come up!)

He is the caterpillar of the Black Swallowtail butterfly, seen here:

Photo by Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man)

So if those caterpillars weren't from the tiger swallowtail, then where did all those butterflies come from? And why were they staying??

Answer- because their host plant is (....drumroll....) the Tulip Tree! Well, that is one of their host plants (this should look familiar, too!) Our house was surrounded on all sides by Liriodendrons (I also learned the Tulip Tree has a bunch of different names!)  :)

http://www.samanthasartstudio.com/tuliptree2.html

And their caterpillars look way, way, way different than the guy above that I painted! What's very interesting is the variation in the caterpillars themselves. I was looking all over the web for clarification of the different caterpillars and didn't understand why so many different looking ones were all tagged as the tiger swallowtail.

Some are bright neon green. Some are brown. Some are multicolored. This is due to the different instars of the caterpillar. Each time the caterpillar sheds its skin, it looks slightly different. This happens to a lot of caterpillars, but this one seems quite dramatic to me.

Imagine my world being turned upside down upon finding out this whole time I've been telling people this caterpillar grows into the wrong butterfly!  (Sorry!)

AND
Imagine my confusion when I found out that all male tiger swallowtail butterflies are yellow and black, but only some of the females are yellow and black. The rest are just plain black! (There is also a rare morph of the two.)
See great pictures and the explanation here:
http://www.rlephoto.com/swallowtails/swallowtail_ET01.html
Eventually I'll learn the differences.... but in my confusion and endless searching for which butterfly was which, I found out there are Black Swallowtails, Black Tiger Swallowtails, Spicebush Swallowtails, and Pipevine Swallowtails
and
they
ALL
look
almost
exactly
THE SAME!

...Eeep!

Please Vote :)

(Or as Puff Daddy (P. Diddy? Diddy?) would say, Vote or Die!)

I'm running a 24 hour poll on the Pollinator Plates blog regarding the design of the plate. Virginia has a lot of plates with a lot of blue in the background, but none (or at least very few) that are pimarily green. I posted two designs and want to choose the final one by tomorrow so I can send my legislator another letter with the new design.

If you have a moment, could you stop by the Pollinator Plates site and vote? The poll is in the upper right corner:
http://pollinatorplates.blogspot.com/

Thanks!! :)

Want! Want! Wednesday- the Pollinator Tree!

It's **DECEMBER** and that means it's almost CHREEEEESTMAS!

And in proper holiday fashion the catalogs have been starting to arrive like crazy, supplying plenty of fodder for upcoming holiday-themed Want! Want! Wednesday posts! Plus they worked perfectly since Want! Want! Wednesday is all about silly things that I don't need and am not going to pay this much for.....
but I like the idea of them.

(Although at the end of the post I will add, there is hope for those of us who love the items I'm featuring this week!!)

This week's Want is a Pollinator-Themed Christmas Tree! It must be the trendy new thing this year because I found decorations in not one, but TWO catalogs! Observe....

The first set of ornaments was in a catalog by a company called Grandin Road.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

While not all strictly pollinators, these garden-themed ornaments are simply adorable, no?

(I am not sure where all of the other ornaments on this tree came from; I wish the catalog had them all.)
I do wish there were some bees! That's one thing I haven't been able to find... a bee ornament. I've been thinking about making some.


But in this little collection you get 25 ornaments for $99. Actually not a bad deal! That's about $4 an ornament. So this Want is actually obtainable.


The direct link to these items from their website can be found here:
http://www.grandinroad.com/jump.jsp?item=42281&maincatcode=null&subcatcode=null&itemID=31019&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C474%2C6382%2C7946&iProductID=31019




I got another catalog in the mail yesterday from a company called Gump's which, honestly with the prices of some of the stuff, I have no clue how they got my info or why they sent it to me. Even their website says "Luxury Gifts..." but whatever.

(click to enlarge)

Super cute, right? There is even a grasshopper!
You can see their entire ornament collection here:
http://www.gumps.com/HOLIDAY+SHOP/Christmas+Ornaments/

Now I'll let you in on the best part of this week's Want.
It IS obtainable!

I saw the first set of these ornaments a week ago and didn't buy them but couldn't stop thinking about them. Then I went into an AC Moore with my mom this weekend and.... there they were. Not these, specifically, but *some* bug ornaments! There were butterflies and dragonflies and all were 50% off, so each was $1.99. I picked up 10 of them and figured even if I have to just do a very little tree, I'll be able to have a Pollinator tree this year.
At the Harris Teeter store down the street, they were also doing a sale on ornaments and I scored two glittery hummingbirds! Yay for more pollinators!

So if you love the idea of a pollinator-themed Christmas tree this year but the items here are out of your budget, just keep your eyes open for deals all around you! Looks like bugs and birds are the new thing!

Happy Decorating!! :)

New Project Idea!!

Last night on our way home from PA, I was chatting with my husband and we came up with an idea for an AWESOME PROJECT!

Awesome because it's going to combine me making art with my favorite subject matter- POLLINATORS!- with raising funds for the Pollinator Partnership!

I don't want to give away too much about the project because I'm paranoid of jinxing it or other applications of Murphy's Law ("anything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong"). So for now..... I'll just give you some visual hints! :)

In the meantime if you're starting your Christmas shopping a little early, take a look in my CafePress Bees store for great "Bee Kind!" shirts, bags, and more! All profit from these items goes to the Pollinator Partnership! :)