#60 Precious & Adorable

C'mon, look at the camera!


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I had been want­i­ng to fea­ture ani­mals, specif­i­cal­ly pets, in an Amper­Art piece for a long time.
A spe­cial event inspired me to cre­ate what you see here.

A birthday party to help homeless animals

In Augsm_arvee_robinson_1ust I was invit­ed to a “mile­stone” birth­day par­ty for my friend and pro­fes­sion­al speak­ing coach Arvee Robin­son (that’s her, the pret­ty lady in the picture).

Arvee always does things with pizazz, flair and the most upbeat atti­tude. But what she did for her birth­day took me by sur­prise, and real­ly warmed my heart. Besides a grand par­ty with fab­u­lous food, danc­ing, and a mag­ic show, Arvee themed it with dogs and cats to dou­ble as a fundrais­er for H.O.P.E., a res­cue and rehab for home­less ani­mals. (More about H.O.P.E in a moment.) Arvee even had “dog­gie bags” which were full of swag for our pets. And she helped me select the breeds for this Amper­Art piece – she once had a siamese and a pug.

Arvee Robin­son is also the founder of the Chris­t­ian Women Speak­ers Move­ment, where her goal is to help oth­er speak­ers over­come the fear of “bring­ing God to more stages.” She asks,

Are you afraid you might be unpop­u­lar if you bring God to the sec­u­lar stage?” 

She once was, she says. Read about this spe­cial group at chris​tian​wom​en​speak​ersmove​ment​.com.


 Helping Our Pets Everyday

HOPEcalendarAt Arvee’s birth­day par­ty I had the hon­or of meet­ing Mar­garet Coff­man, the founder of H.O.P.E. – Help­ing Our Pets Every­day. Isn’t that a won­der­ful phrase? I told her I would def­i­nite­ly spread the word about her very spe­cial foun­da­tion, where Mar­garet and vol­un­teers have com­pas­sion­ate­ly saved hun­dreds of pre­cious ani­mals from aban­don­ment, star­va­tion and death. She has cared for ani­mals her entire life.

Please vis­it www​.help​in​gout​pet​sev​ery​day​.com to adopt, vol­un­teer, donate, or just be charmed! Their 2015 cal­en­dar is avail­able, shown in the picture.


Big pets, too

Just look at these amaz­ing pho­tos. Who says we can’t all get along? These pic­tures are on Ron Levy’s Inner Align­ment Method web­site, where Ron shows how you can dis­cov­er your life’s mag­nif­i­cence. I urge you to read about Ron’s enlight­en­ing explo­ration of life for over 50 years, in his blog.


 

Production notes:
Original size: 10x15 inches
Program: Photoshop
Fonts: Minion, Futura
Ampersand: Futura (modified)
Images:
Siamese: Bonzami Emmanuelle /​ 123rf​.com
Pug: Copyright: Kitch Bain /​ 123rf​.com

#33 Raindrops & Whiskers

 

This is the first of four pieces in the My Favorite Things col­lec­tion, inspired by the song from the 1960 musi­cal and 1965 movie The Sound of Music. Only the lyric phras­es con­tain­ing “and” were turned into Amper­Art designs. I’m glad “whiskers on kit­tens” was one of them. I love cats & kit­tens. I don’t like ros­es as much as car­na­tions, but “rain­drops on car­na­tions” prob­a­bly would not have won an Emmy.

Each edi­tion in this series will be released a week apart. You must sub­scribe to receive high-​resolution pdf files so you can cre­ate beau­ti­ful prints (11x17 or 8.5x11 inch­es). Sub­scrip­tions are free & you will receive your print down­loads by email. You’ll find sug­ges­tions on print­ing and fram­ing here.

In research­ing the style to use for this art­work I found one of the orig­i­nal movie posters, sam­pled the col­ors from which I chose a lim­it­ed palette (I did not use blue as that would be your per­fect mat in a nice frame), select­ed the appro­pri­ate type­styles & hand-​drew the amper­sand, styl­iz­ing it to resem­ble the main title in the poster:

The amper­sand not only con­nects rain­drops and kit­tens and ket­tles and ponies and door­knobs, it also links the last two lines of the song, which appear on all four lay­outs at very top and very bottom.

To fur­ther research this piece, I real­ly enjoyed watch­ing the movie! If you ever need a joy­ful lift & a lit­tle humor, this is the movie to see. It’s won­der­ful & timeless.

If you love the amper­sand sub­scribe to Amper­Art here to receive future Amper­Art edi­tions. They’re always fun & fab­u­lous & free. Sub­scribers also receive spe­cial bonus­es.