Friday, August 22, 2008

You Know You Live in Texas...

when you find a lizard in your house. Last week I found a tiny lizard skittering up the wall next to the fireplace. Fortunately we were able to catch him in a paper cup before the cat had any idea of what was going on. I tried to take a picture of him, but it was dark outside and he was rather camera shy. I think he might have been a Mediterranean Gecko. It must be lizard-hatching season or something because another baby lizard had taken up residence in my fern for a while. He was a little less camera-shy:

Well, I’m just beginning work on a new book project, so I probably won’t be posting much by way of art for quite some time. I’ll give out more details about the book when I’m closer to finishing and when the title is finalized and such. In the meantime, here are a couple of illustrations I painted for Spider last year. The (true!) story was about some beavers that found a bag of stolen money and used it to construct their lodge. I was particularly pleased with the way the water turned out on the second piece:

By the way, if you happen to be in a bookstore check out the September issue of Highlights. I painted a rooster to accompany one of the articles!

Also, for those following the Orphan Works Issue - here's the SBA Orphan Works Roundtable Webcast.

5 comments:

Kristi Valiant said...

What a cute little gecko. I found them all the time when I lived in Texas. I would have clear ones on my porch that you could turn over and see their insides. Weird, huh?

Congrats on the illustrations in Spider and Highlights and on your book! I like the water too in your second one and the way his back paws are spread out to swim. I'll have an illustration in Highlights in December, my first one. Hopefully there'll be more! :)

Roberta said...

Oh yes that's Texas. We're having a lot of them in Houston too...and frogs!
Lovely illos.

Phyllis said...

Hi Kristi,
That is weird - I haven't seen one of those lizards yet...

Congrats on your Highlights illustration. I'll have to check it out in December.

Phyllis said...

Hi Roberta,

Thanks! We'd been hearing a lot of post-rain nocturnal chirping lately and finally found out what it was when we ventured outside late at night with a flashlight - so many tiny toads!

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