August proved to be as busy as can be; exciting and challenging. Magic and I continued our regular walks, one of my favorite times in Colorado. Morning sunrises and evening sunsets are renewing inspirations for me. Hands in clay occupied my day. New Corgi works, touch up on an elephant I had started at the Evergreen Gallery during a wonderful open house, and for fun, (as if all that wasn't fun) a roadrunner! After Vic and my adventure at the Brookfield Zoo watching the roadrunners in a fun natural exhibit, I knew one would errupt at sometime, so here it is in clay. (#1 is taken, bbut let me know if you are interested, edition of 20).
The sculpture shows in Loveland came and went so quickly I hardly knew what hit me. I had a lovely booth at the Invitational. Weather was good and so were the crowds. "The Offering", my giraffe with its 2 hornbill friends, sat in the center where many people stopped to get have a giggle. Love all those smiles!
Best of all was getting to deliver it to its new home after the show. It will live in a lovely rock garden.
It was only a short time of working on waxes, getting the next group of pieces ready for foundry when it was time for the next big adventure:
The 50th Anniversary show/celebration of the Society of Animal Artists!Off to San Diego! Many of us stayed at the Town and Country resort where meetings and greetings and headquarters were set. It's a lovely place, roses and cosey places to sit, 3 restaurants to choose from right there as well as being right on the trolley station, and a mall across the street. I shared a room with artist Sandra Blair. We had a blast!
Getting in a day early allowed me to visit with an old friend and then a special surprise (indulge me, I'm a grandma) a surprise visit from my daughter and grandson Isaiah!
We found a lovely playground and of course some water!
The Society had so many activities! Besides our wonderful chances to meet and greet ( I don't think Bob and Diane Mason had a moment of privacy) we headed to the Wild Animal Park. My favorite was the shoebilled stork. It looks like it stepped right out of Alice and Wonderland.
Another highlight of the day was the cheetah! My favs always. 2 young cheetahs got lunch, hand fed by a keeper who obviously addors them.The cheetahs each had their own place to stand and waited patiently as she alternated handed them their yummy meat.
Oh, confusion set in here. But then, the order doesn't matter, just that it all happened. Our first adventure was a whale watching adventure! Although the whales were scarce, we saw seals, sealions, gulls, pelicans, and much more. Porpoises played with us as we returned to the harbor.
Being animal artists, we couldn't have been happier with a day at the San Diego Zoo. Since my piece in the SAA show is my Guenon monkey, "The Sage", I was happy to find that the zoo has Guenon's! (photo of live guenon courtesy of Annie Coulter who came to my rescue when my camera decided not to work in the low light).
We spent the whole day winding the many paths through the zoo, spending much time in the aviaries. By evening we were quite happy to enjoy a wonderful dinner right there in an area just for us.
Saturday was our meeting with an amazing talk by Robert Bateman. After a wonderful lunch I had the priveledge of riding with Bob and his lovely wife Birgit to our opening at the Natural History Museum. There I was one of a few of our artists to be giving demos for the public. Kids love to see the animals happening out of lumps of clay and I had clay to share with those who just couldn't help but get their hands busy. A few of us took an extra day to just wind down and visit the harbor in San Diego. All too soon we were on our way home.
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