Today I put up a new page on the blog. It's a series of links to products and books that I've tried and am happy to recommend. Please take a look, and if you're interested in buying any of these products, please use these links. Because if you do, I will receive a small percentage of your purchase price from the vendor, and I will pass these funds on to animal charities. If you take a look at my website (link on the banner) you will see that I have created a non-profit organization to raise money through art to donate to animal charities.

I didn't post a photo of my latest animal fairy yet, so here she is - Emeralda! As you can see, she's a mouse fairy. I used bigger glass eyes on her than I have on my other animal fairies and I think it works well for her. Her headdress has a small peacock feather in it, and just in front of the feather, though it doesn't show well in this photo, is a beautiful emerald green square crystal drop from an old, broken piece of jewelry. I split her wings into an upper and lower pair and she's pulling her lower right wing forward so you can see how beautiful it is.

I decided to try Pastelmat again, and today finished the drawing for my next pastel painting and transferred it to the Pastelmat. My painting will be a portrait of Aslan, one of the special cats at Fat Kitty City (http://www.ageerescue.org/) , a cat shelter that I support through donations. The Pastelmat will be perfect for the detail in the carpet, and I'm going to give it my best try as a good surface for fur - as far, nothing beats Hahnemuhle velour paper as a surface for fur! Aslan is a gorgeous long-haired cat with incredible blue eyes. I'm really looking forward to getting started on him tomorrow.