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This spring I took a quick trip to Los Angeles, just to get away from the ordinary—which is something L.A. can certainly deliver on. While walking past a body shop I noticed this beauty sitting there and thought it was high time I did a new car portrait, so I snapped a photo. Granted, it took months for it to actually happen—but even now it conjures Beach Boys harmonizing.

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This is the first time I have done this, but I’m pulling forward one from the archives. The Illustration Friday theme this week is “clutter”, so the obvious choice was the first illustration in my collective nouns series, a clutter of cats…

I was asked last month to do a design for t-shirts for a local design company’s summer retreat. They were after a pig bacchus, which was right up my alley. I can’t wait to see it on the actual shirt, it will be screened onto an olive fabric, so should be interesting to see. Here’s the colour version:

The Illustration Friday theme for this week is “detach”.

See the rest of the pirats here…

Even foxes get left at the table to finish their vegetables, while everyone else goes to watch TV and eat their dessert. While young foxes are undeniably sly and crafty, their parents are sly-er and crafty-er, so they’re on to the spit-it-into-the-napkin technique, or the hide-it-under-the-lip-of-the-table move. And fox families rarely have dogs to slip food to. As a result, a good deal of a young fox’s life is spent mournfully staring at a plate of peas.

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I was lucky enough to spend my earliest years just steps from the shore of a beautiful lake. I spent my summers mostly in the water, and still love paddling around in a lake more than anything.

Because I spent so much time around water as a young kid, I was comfortable in the water from an early age. Which meant I missed out on one particular childhood experience that I desperately wanted to be part of: water wings. I remember other kids with their plastic puffy armbands lolling around in the water, and I always envied them. Water wings looked like the ultimate in warm-weather good times. Of course the cheapo 70’s versions probably sliced your armpits to shreds, but still. Water wings. Awesome.

Do they make adult-sized ones? This is something I’ll definitely have to look into.

My buddy John is going through a bit of a wildman phase. But it’s okay, I think he looks a little like Sweetums. Besides, I’m sure his kitten enjoys curling up in all that hair, and hey—I’m all for catering to the whims of a kitten.

The Illustration Friday word for this week is “foggy”.

I know, I know.

Forry.

The rental shops along the Santa Monica boardwalk, in addition to their stacks of boogie boards and bicycles, also offer segways. This strikes me as hilarious. Imagine the opening sequence of Three’s Company if it was filmed today…

Millicent is my cat, and her ratting skills are second to none. Summer has brought with it a new batch of wee roof rats, and she has been bringing them in at a steady pace—SIX last week, to be exact. Luckily the chipmunk trap I bought works like a charm, it has become part of the herding process. Four were rounded up into the cage and let loose in the same spot in the nearby ravine, to facilitate finding each other again. And, it’s lucky that I am writing this before I turn in tonight, as it is garbage day tomorrow, and I have just been reminded that I have the two unlucky ones in the freezer. Have to nip out to the curb before bed, methinks…