I am super stoked about this one of Becky, aka Becktress on flickr. I had such a multitude of fabulous shots from which to choose! Fantastic. Thank you for letting me paint you, Becky!

Happy Monday! With my parents visiting last week, I took a few days off of work to spend some time with them and wander around Southern California. Here’s some pictures! These were all taken (with exception of the scan at the bottom) with my iPhone using Instagram.

We went to the Getty in LA. The architecture and grounds were absolutely stunning. Their collection of Dutch paintings is also pretty fantastic.

Pretty flowers were everywhere!

The views were really amazing.

I saw this marvelous man while walking around Newport Beach. He’s got heavy eyelids & big eyebrows along with his most supreme moustache. I am pretty disappointed that he is not a pizza parlor.

And among my time off, I managed to find some time to complete a gouache painting of the lovely Kate Sloan aka citymorningblue.

Thank you, Kate, for allowing me to paint your picture! I suspect that I’ll be doing quite a few more portraits in the days to come. I’m also thinking about offering custom portraits for sale; would anyone be interested?

Anyone have some animal suggestions for any future letters?

The dik dik is a tiny antelope that calls the bushes of East Africa, Angola and Namibia home. Adorable little herbivores that form permanent mating pairs and have one baby at a time. When the dik dik get into little territorial scuffles, they “dash at each other, stop short, vigorously nod their heads and turn around. They will repeat this process increasing the distance each time until one gives up. ” (thanks wikipedia!) Which has to be the most adorable way possible to battle.

He is so sad!
C’mon! I hope you knew the letter c was going to be cat! Crazy cat ladies (and dudes) represent.

Painting! I do this!

A series begins! Aa is for Alpaca.

Geoffrey wishes you a happy Friday!