"Winter Campfire" Christmas Cards

I realize it's quite a bit early to be thinking about Christmas, but I know some people (me! me!) like to get started on their shopping early.  With that said, I've just listed two 4-pack sets of of "Winter Campfire" Christmas cards at my Etsy shop. I'm hoping to find more of these cards buried somewhere, but at the moment it looks like this is it, so get them while you can!

4-pack set of 5.5 x 7.25 greeting cards printed on card stock. Image framed by a 1/8" white border. Four white envelopes included. Blank inside.

Pythagoras & Zero - in Chinese!

I brought in my mail today and discovered, to my delight, copies of the Chinese translations of my books, What's Your Angle, Pythagoras? and A Place for Zero!  I'm usually informed about the sales of foreign rights, but I'm always quite surprised when translated copies arrive in the mail - a really fun surprise!  I love seeing the foreign publishers' different approaches to cover design - quite different from the American versions!  There's barely a word of English to be found in these books, but I see a url on the back cover for Foreign Language Teaching and Resource Press, so I'm going to guess that's the Chinese publisher...

Pansy Watercolor Study

Pansies from my little balcony garden!  I really like doing these simple watercolor nature studies every now and then.  They're almost relaxing to me - probably because they don't take anywhere near as long to paint as my usual techniques.  I'll have to do more of them.  :)

Available here at my Etsy Shop.

Envy in the Arctic

I'm none too thrilled with the way this piece turned out.  Something's not right about it, but it's time to move on.  So here it is:

They're a bit troublesome to paint, what with all the wrinkles, but having painted a couple, I now think walruses are pretty cute. (Though maybe they are not so pleasant if met in person...)

IF: Carry

I'm going to cheat a little bit for this week's Illustration Friday topic and pull an illustration from my book, What's Your Angle, Pythagoras?

In this scene, Pythagoras and his father are helping Nef, the builder, carry building materials in ancient Egypt.  Nef had apparently hurt his thumb and couldn't carry more than a tile, leaving Pyth and his dad to do the heavy lifting.

New Website Design

I'd been growing a bit weary of my website design for a while now.  I figure after six years of the same old site, a redesign might be in order.  I wanted to get away from the clutter and go for a clean, simple, and straightforward design - http://phyllishornungpeacock.com/.  There are a few pieces of art in the gallery that I've never posted online before, but most of it was either on my site previously and/or posted on this blog.  The new design is very visually spare compared to my old design, but hopefully that will only help to not distract from the art itself.  Plus it has this cute little animated bird (who's looking a wee bit blurry here...):

Also, I set up a Facebook page for my work if anybody prefers to follow in that fashion.  Facebook seems like it might be a better place for interaction than these standard blog formats.  So, hope you enjoy!  Feedback is welcome too!

A Trip to Seattle

We made an early escape this year from what promises to be another hot summer.  Just came back from the Seattle area a few days ago where we spent one night in a treehouse at Treehouse Point:

Stood in the chilly mist of Snoqualmie Falls:

Wandered the quaint Bavarian-style town of Leavenworth:

Hiked a small, but steep mountain near Ellensburg, WA:

Hiked up another mountain trail near Monroe, WA which took us past three more waterfalls!

And some great views:

Finally ending up at the ice-covered Lake Serene:

Oh, and we managed to squeeze in a wedding and graduation too - the real main events!

Whew!  Now I'm tired!