Hot Water, Car Accidents, and Earthquakes

It's been a rough week for a lot of people. I was feeling annoyed without a hot water heater this week. And then on Wednesday, a woman rear-ended me as I stopped my car at a pedestrian crossing. Ouch. But I think the people of Haiti have a lot more to worry about than me. Sort of puts your life into perspective, doesn't it? We have the luxury of calling someone to come over and replace the hot water heater and the woman that hit my car has insurance. It might annoy me, but it is not a tragedy. It's not even that interesting, really, so now for something completely different.

Two things I have been working on this week.
1) My Fatbook pages for Artfest are evolving. I painted the backgrounds last week and this week I cut out a linoleum stamp of a goose and a banner. Below is the general idea, but I am going to use black ink and add a gold egg and some more writing at the bottom.

I plan on cutting each one of these out by hand. I see a DVD or two and many Exacto blades in my future...

I use water based inks and a piece of granite tile for rolling out the ink.
2) My husband and I started a wine group on Facebook last February and it has been a big success. We have 35 members and have a wine tasting every month at a different venue. This month is the largest ever, with 23 people signed up. (!) To commemorate our group, I decided to make a little zine for each member to hand out at next week's tasting.

I have illustrated all of the pages and now I am working on photocopying them all. The photocopying is turning out to be a little tricky, lining up the fronts to the backs, but I have a week to figure it all out.

Please consider donating to relief organizations that are working in Haiti. World Vision is a good one based in Washington State or of course the Red Cross. Thanks and hope you have a good weekend!