100 Mice Almost Painted

Mice in Progress

Over 100 mice are crowding my work area. They are in various stages of being painted.

It's fun to look at them. Mice don't scare me one bit. : )

The first 30+ were painted with my vintage water colors from England. The next set, as seen at the left, are painted with ink and gouache.

This has been a great exercise in letting go and having fun. In this process, I have become more confident in my ink lines and skills with color.

Many times the best way to learn is to just do it. Learn from what happens...mistakes and successes.

My goal is to have all the mice complete by the end of September. Then they can go into the mail for October delivery to all who have reserved one.

There are 19 mice unspoken for...so, send in your top 5 number choices and one of those mice will be yours.

Reserve Your Mouse Today!

Quantity Produces Quality

Mice have invaded my work space.

Why 100 mice?

Because by creating a large quantity of mouse themed illustrations - I am forced to stretch in my ideas of how a mouse could be drawn and what situations a mouse might get into.

In addition, I'm reminded of a story I read years ago in the inspiring book, "Art and Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orland:

"The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pounds of pots rated an 'A', forty pounds a 'B', and so on.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work and learning from their mistakes the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

So...I'm producing a quantity of mice in order to improve the quality of my mice....oh yes, and to improve my skills with ink and watercolor.

What activities have you spent hours freely doing? Aren't you pretty good at them?

What are they?

What skill would you like to get better at? Try the quantity experiment.

100 Mouse Project

Flying Mouse

As a fun way to be drawing, inking, and painting more, I started my own 100 Mouse Project.

Over the next months, I will draw, ink, and paint 100 mice. I've already inked 33.

Each picture is numbered. Family and friends have started to reserve their favorite numbers. When all 100 paintings are complete, I will send them to the person who reserved their number. A painting grab bag. : )

Contact me to reserve your favorite number.