I was wondering why I hadn't seen your work before- but I have. Your art is so joyful. I remember your subtle happy creatures...

There is something strangely old school bit-mappy about the square knots in the background, but again with inspiring organic shapes and lively colours

Thanks for your comment on my 'subtle happy creatures'. 2008 was a rough year for me and they haven't made their way back to my artwork until this one here. They are kind of running around inside though wanting to come out to play so hopefully soon. (The creatures in "Creatures of the Marsh Grass" don't really look happy or playful).

Not sure how this piece came together, the background is a bit 'odd'. When I completed the piece the square knots felt a little like windows. I'm satisfied enough, though I considered reworking it somehow but decided to move on to something new.

The colors feel too bright to me on the internet but I am having to get used to the original looking somewhat different from what I post. I'm not fond of messing with trying to get it just right with my scanner.

RE: colours, you have to remember too that every monitor shows colours differently, so even if you adjust the scan for your monitor- no one else will see it exactly the same.

If you use photoshop (or the free Gimp program) you can play with an adjustment layer that will easily change the look of the scan back to where you think it should be.

I've been trying to use non-computer stuff (like pen & ink and pencil crayons again) to do some art. It really is so much harder now for me. I've developed work habits that rely on a lot of erasing and picking colours after I finish the work, etc.

I know I couldn't finish something like your picture with pencil crayons and then decide to change something that meant redoing the whole work.

I ran across a motto recently, that this production comic book guy kept above his desk, and even though it strikes me as artistic blasphemy, I've decided to take it somewhat to heart.
He said: "Never draw what you can copy, never copy what you can trace, never trace what you can cut and paste."
I've really come to love how easy it is to do several versions of a picture without having to redo all the work. Getting my ideas out is more important than going through the process.
--uh, somehow I felt that was relevant to the topic but I've lost track of why. Anyway, here's to the return of the happy creatures!

I can imagine how different it must be to do artwork mainly on a computer. Pretty easy to change things. If I redid anything I would mostly work over top of what was there, add more detail, change the color or shading.