"Place beneath Fish" can be placed beneath, or beside any fish to help others identify it. The arrow pointing to the fish will help clear up any confusion about what the person is looking at. It's a perfect holiday gift for fisherman, sushi itamae, or friends who can never remember what a fish looks like.

I have lots of scraps of nice paper left over from my book illustration project, so I like to use them to make new friends. It's very fun because you don't have to worry about messing up the paper, since it is just a scrap. I like to paint without knowing what will come out. I have already put some other examples of scrap art on the blog "Elephant has time for nonsense" "Miniature soccer" and "I'm still afraid of the deep end"..."self portrait of me as someone else" and others.

Some of these will be on sale Tuesday at the Cafemode show in LIttle Tokyo Los angeles. Http://www.cafemode.com

Here are a few more scrap art pieces.

This squid and whale is made from different layers of sky and ocean. The whale, Shintaroo, is just a baby. The squid is a giant squid. He lives deep in the sea all by himself. He doesn't really have any friends because he is a solitary cephalopod. If Shintaroo dives down a little bit he might meet the squid. I think they will get a long nicely.

Here is a lion made of two scraps stuck together. His name is Lion, so it's easy to remember. I'm not sure if he's finished or not. His belly is full of zebra right now.

This one is a little different because It's the only one that I painted with a certain idea in mind. I painted it after a friend asked me to make a melancholy Beluga whale.
I think that Beluga whales are the cutest of the whales. They are small and manageable and have a funny hump above their mouth, so it looks like a giant lip. I have met humpback whales, right whales, grey whales and killer whales, but I have not met a beluga. I am hoping to make friends with one soon.
I would also like to meet a MInke whale. I have never seen a minke whale in the wild, but I have seen one on my cafeteria tray in elementary school. He tasted strong and musty.

Yesterday, I drew this self portrait of me as someone else. You are probably thinking that it looks just like me, if I were somebody else. Thank you, that's nice of you to say. I think next I'll draw a self portrait of me when I was a whale, or maybe a throat lozenge. Is there a self portrait you'd like to see?

You can't tell in the scan so well, but this one is made on two pieces of scraps that are glued together. I drew the bottom half of my face first and then decided I should draw a top half too, so I had to get another piece of paper. If you look, you can see a line through my eyes, that's the second paper.

I've been painting my book project on big pieces of paper. I cut the pages down a little and I end up with lots of scraps of fancy rag paper. I like to take the left over scraps and paint on them. My elephant friend in the last post also lives on a scrap. There is no pressure to make something special when you are using a scrap. I like to paint big and stupid on them sometimes.

I painted a green kitty on another scrap too, but she's not done. I can't figure out what she is saying. She is hanging above my bed, so that I can listen to her each morning when I wake up and at night when I go to sleep. She is such a quiet kitty though. I'm going to have to listen harder.