Is this fun like an ironic trucker hat, or trite... like an ironic trucker hat?

It's more of a sketch really, so you don't need to point out the flaws in the grisaille palette or imperfect martini glass.  I'm experimenting with where my work is going to go next.

Normally, my animals animal-animals, not people-animals.  I think this will not be a direction I am willing to go - critters standing on their hind legs, ha!  Maybe the cats are a theme though, rather than going down the road of (truthfully and sadly less-than-original) animals hanging out in cocktail lounges (hello, dogs playing poker!).  Still I also don't want to go all George Rodrigue on you, even if I would like his success, thank you very much.  It's been done, too

And if you don't know George Rodrigue, you should probably check out his very compelling blue dog work.  Talk about a man who was able to take one thing and own it.

So yesterday I picked up my painting, Kitten in Winter, from the image capture studio.  I've been pimpin' it out as much as I can stand all over the internets, after going through the day job wringer over and over...  This SEO (search engine optimization) thing is still so new to me, and overwhelming.  I just learned what it is a few months ago.  But that's not real the problem.  The problem is, of course, that the kitten is coming true.

Coming true?  What does this mean, you may ask...  Well, I still prefer our soggy rainforest winter to the icy blast of my Vermont childhood, but there are consequences.  The clouds get to you.  Light deprivation is sadly not a joke, and I have been exhausted this week for no reason.  Again.  I've been taking my Vitamin D, but haven't been using the Happy Lamp I was so ready to be my salvation.  And it is taking its toll.  I guess I needed to get back in touch with my sense of S.A.D. since I am hoping to make a big breakout exploiting our communal feeling of hopelessness.  I laughed at Portland's #1 ranking as the most depressed city in the U.S., before I got here.  Ladies and gentlemen, the kitten does not lie!

The funny thing is that I knew when I painted it that I could not have created Kitten in Winter actually during wintertime.  That would have been unbearable.  And truthfully, it is too colorful for an accurate depiction of winter.  The color of a northeastern winter is white.  The colors of a northwestern winter are gray and green, depending on if you look up or down.  Blue is a mood, but it's a happier version of gray.  In the winter, I pull out the neon pigments.  In fact, I am so itchy to do so right now!!!  And yet, many hours of my day job, assisting administratively, stretch before me.  There is very little neon in my office, although I have more toys than the average office drone.

And yet, I am still excited for Portlandia's episode 5 (in a week!) - and am desperately hoping to be mocked brutally on national TV, in the hopes that indeed no press is bad press.  But there is no guarantee this will happen.  I feel confident the painting will at least appear on a wall as "production value," but beyond that, it's like playing the lottery.  And we all know that you can't win the lottery every week.  So I'm busting my arse on spec, which is hard to do... in winter.

So I'll dose up on the happy lamp like crazy over the next few days and report back.  I'm not going to let my inner sad kitten in a basket get the better of me.