watercolor 5 x 7 5/2015

I painted this for Kim Eastwood of the KE Appaloosa Horse Ranch in Minnesota. Annteke Platinum aka Suki. She is one of 12 appaloosa horses on her ranch. If you would like to see the progression of the painting take this link to my Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/White-Dog-Art/144972248885874?ref=hl

In tenth grade you say to your friend Katie, “Let’s be anorexic.” You are joking, but not really, and she’s looking straight at you and she says, “Okay.” Katie takes to it like a house on fire, but you are weak. You break and eat after dark with shaking fingers in the cold light of the refrigerator. Katie pares her daily intake down to an apple and a can of tuna until she decides she’s enjoying the tuna too much, and then she drinks the juice but leaves the meat. She cuts her lip on the can and it doesn’t heal and doesn’t heal. She drapes across your bed, staring at the ceiling, and works the cut with her tongue while you do homework. You watch her skeleton emerge like a time-lapse video of decay. One day she passes out on her way back from the lunch line and breaks her collarbone against the corner of a…

“I’m so exhausted,” Blake Brockington wrote before walking into traffic on Interstate 485 on March 23, 2015.

Blake was a handsome young man. He had been crowned homecoming king and had spoken about his trials and triumphs on the national stage. Blake was also transgender.

“When you’re a kid, parents always tell you sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt you. To me that’s not true. Words hurt, and words turn up to threats and threats turn up to physical violence.” Taylor Alesana, like many transgender teens, was made to feel uncomfortable at school and in society. She spoke about it on her popular YouTube channel before taking her life on April 2, 2015, just days after Blake.

“When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told…

I love it when the wise and educated will inform us that eating fresh veggies will reduce the risk of cancer…duh!!  That’s because everything else we eat that is filled with chemicals and man-made synthetics increases the risk of cancer!  (Especially in the U.S.)  We finally have some carrots coming up and we got these fun, colorful ones.  Can’t wait to harvest them.  Cool weather root vegetables are packed with the vitamins and nutrients that our bodies are needing and craving after a long winter without them.  Just in case you were wondering.

Yesterday’s poses were held for 13, 12, 10, 7 and 5 minutes.

Watercolour and pencil in my Saunders Waterford (rough) sketchbook, 28 x 38 cm

The National Institute on Drug Abuse, a US federal government research institute whose mission includes “bringing the power of science to bear on drug abuse and addiction,” has officially admitted that marijuana extracts can kill cancer cells.

The institute has revised a page on itswebsiteentitled “DrugFacts: Is Marijuana Medicine?” citing a recent study conducted by a group of scientists at St. George’s University, London.

“Recent animal studies have shown that marijuana extracts may help kill certain cancer cells and reduce the size of others,”the NIDA report stated, adding that evidence from“one cell culture study suggests that purified extracts from whole-plant marijuana can slow the growth of cancer cells from one of the most serious types of brain tumors.”

The study, published in the Molecular Cancer Therapeutics journal in November, discovered that cannabis helps “dramatically reduce” the growth of new brain cancer cells.

“The benefits of the…

Yesterday, I expected to see the rain, because of the weather report. Not uncommonly around here, the weather report was wrong and, instead, I saw the light.

Yesterday, I forgot my cell phone when I went out into the light to meet my childhood-through-present-day friend Barbara for brunch, so no photos of that wonderful meeting will see the light.

During my time with Barbara yesterday, we talked about many things — from the light to the heavy — including:

• memories from our childhood,
• medical issues,
• coping strategies,
• many people we’ve loved over the years,  including our parents,
• this blog,
• how to do better accepting the light of other people’s praise and positive feedback, and
• vacation getaways, including this one:

I told Barbara how, during some dark days I was having last week, that video of the Underwater Room in Africa had lightened my mood.

Talking to Barbara for hours yesterday…

The funniest and wittiest quotes from Ambrose Bierce’s comic masterpiece, The Devil’s Dictionary

We’ve read the whole of Ambrose Bierce’s wonderful The Devil’s Dictionary and, below, have distilled the book into 25 of the very best entries in this classic lexicon. The only stipulation we set ourselves was that the quotes we selected had to be short and pithy – preferably no longer than one sentence – to ensure maximum quotability. We hope you enjoy our selection.

Admiration,n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.

Barometer,n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

Clairvoyant,n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron – namely, that he is a blockhead.

Comfort,n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s uneasiness.

Consult, v. To seek another’s approval of a…

I have Red Zazen Cat Buddha
up on RedBubble!

And a handsome husband
who is willing to model
his shirts for me!

We have men’s, women’s,
tanks, and hoodies —
and other products as well!