Unsure animal has a problem.



What if you were a nice animal, but you woke up one day and had animal amnesia?

You might have hit your head hard on a tree the day before, or been partially eaten by some kind of bear or mountain cat. What if all of your animal instincts went away, and you forgot all about what kind of animal you were and how you were supposed to live?

This happened to my friend Jacob Tortoise. I saw him walking by, very slowly, and called his name but he didn't even look. I kept calling to him, but he just ignored me and went on walking, pretty slowly.

It must have been animal amnesia.

I'd dreamed about Jacob so many times before, I'm sure he would have recognized me.

Green Cat is listening closely




This is the second animal I did for the art book. I guess the editor will choose between Jacob the Polar Bear and Jacob the green cat.

Jacob the green cat has excellent listening skills. He can hear things that you and I can't. One day he heard me wondering. Another day, he heard me being indecisive. And he even heard me when I was drawing the shadow under his tail. I wonder if hearing all those things makes it hard for him to sleep.

Jacob the Polar Bear



On Monday, I got a message from a person editing an art book who asked me to contribute a painting. The deadline was the next day, so I only had one day to do it. I did two different paintings.

This is Jacob (Lighting) Hal the Polar Bear. Lighting isn't his middle name, it's just a nickname. His friend Trudy (Fresh Produce) Whistlecap gave him the nickname when she saw him chasing a murre. He is very fast.

I'm not sure what is happening in this painting. I thought maybe Jacob is trying to become an explorer. He is sailing west on his chunk of ice, and is looking for the Northwest passage. He has a long voyage ahead of him. Maybe he is thinking about Trudy, and wondering if he will be forgotten.

Garage sale Babar makes Sunday happy


I went to one garage sale today and found this Babar linen tapestry. The tag on the back says it is from 1961. Babar is a pretty old elephant, but he's still very fit and healthy.
I didn't go to garage sales yesterday (Saturday) because the waves were 3-5 ft in Los Angeles and they wanted me to surf them. Today I stopped at one sale and found Babar waiting for me. He was three dollars.

I guess one of my main art influences is this kind of soft and happy animal art from the 60's and 70's. I like Babar's family very much. When I see soft elephants I feel very pleasant and happy with the world.



This is a soft animal print by an artist named Robert Van Allen, that I got at a garage sale a while ago. I looked up his name, but there is no other information on the internet. I could only find 2 other prints by him. People call them "Stretched canvas" prints. I would like to get more soft animal prints like this from the sixties and seventies. This Kangaroo hangs at the foot of my bed,so that I can go to bed at night, and wake up in the morning, in a soft animal wonderland.