Congrats, Wallybee!

Vampires with castle wallpaper

They were all gorgeous, but this one is my favorite.

Thankee!

At any other time in my life, seeing the level of detail required in that one, I'd probably shy away. These days, I can't wait to dive into it.

Nice touch with the hair.

The Dover vampires book is All. About. The. Hair. Lots and lots of flowing hair. It's really challenging me to work on the blending and texture techniques.

I went blonde with this one...I also like the stonework.

I will say this about the Dover books. I prefer scanning the images and coloring them on printer paper, rather than doing the work in the book. The paper is not great (pocked and, with too high a 'bite') and the lines smudge way too easily. If I press hard at all, the next two pages suffer transfer marks.

Plus, if you make a mistake...which is how wallpaper vamp ended up in a black shirt...you are stuck.

Though, weirdly enough, once I get started on a piece, I can't seem to abandon it. In fact, I've rescued every single one of my mistakes rather than just start over again. Commitment issues? Not me.

I love the internet this morning! TCG's nephew's birthday snuck up on us again, but I just sent him an amazon.com gift card with an e-card that will reach him on today, and which his dad says he'll love. We'll probably still send him a regular card and a comic book, but he'll at least get something today.

I'm a bad, bad person, y'all.

Because this shouldn't please me quite as much as it does.

I'll admit, I realize in retrospect that one of the biggest errors we all made was in not playing up the Carmen angle in order to attract the attention of the reviewers/librarians. That said, I have been feeling a bit like the ugly, forgotten, red-headed stepchild, especially after the starred PW review Myers received that lauded his taking on Carmen as subject matter.

I'm a bad, petty person and I'm probably going to some special level in hell.

Woo! Joining Barb in the special hell because I laughed like a loon.

Shoot, Barb, if I were you, I'd put that on my website.

Possibly followed by "So THERE!"

That's awesome, Barb. I don't think it makes you a bad person at all.

Yay, Wallybee!

AHAHAHA! Barb, that is, indeed, awesome.

My dog [link]

What a gorgeous dog, Plei!

Yay Wallybee! As if becoming the parent of a 2-year-old wasn't enough excitement and accomplishment for one week.

I, too, laughed like a mean spiteful little loon at the dismissal of Myers, and smiled and nodded at the tip of the hat to Stars.

Random Matilda update: This morning, sitting on the potty while I "kept her company" (sat on the edge of the bathtub sucking down coffee and mumbling while she chattered away), she looked at me intently and said, "Mommy, when I talk my voice is kind of croaky, but your voice is very sweet."

"Really, my voice is kind of weird," I said (it is, really; a voiceover teacher once described it as "polarizing - every casting director who hears it is going to hate it or love it, but they'll never not notice it"--it doesn't bother me, it's just a thing). "I think you just think my voice is sweet because you love me."

"Who says your voice is weird?" Matilda asked.

"Lots of people. Almost everyone."

"NO, Mommy." Her voice got steely. "I mean, tell me their names."

Which I declined to do, because I don't want to be inadvertently responsible for my 4-year-old carrying out hits on half of Northern California.