Illustration Friday: Tales and Legends

Work In Progress

Even though I'm still working on this project, I wanted to post it while IF was still on Tales and Legends because it fit so perfectly. This is the first painting I've done just for myself in a long, long time, if ever. I'd love to hear some feedback.

I caught a mouse! Now what do I do with it?

"My mother was simple, even for a fox. My brother and I watched her sometimes catch and loose a mouse a half a dozen times before she remembered to bite it while she still had her paws on it. We were amazed sometimes that she had survived long enough to bear us."

For weeks I've heard skittering and gnawing in the walls. Finally, I picked up a bag of rice for dinner and spilled it everywhere because a hole had been chewed in the corner of the bag. Enough was enough, if this mouse was getting into the apartment proper than it could get into our rat cage to steal food from them, and our rats could get any number of disease or parasites from it. I would not allow that to happen. So all our dry goods were packed away, including the rats' food and treats, and I set out a couple different types of live traps.

Now, maybe deadly traps or poisons are more effective, but not only am I rather tender hearted, and felt no ill will toward this tiny creature, but if the mouse were killed inside the apartment, any parasites that were on this creature would set out to look for a new home, and my little girls would be too tempting of a target, and from what I've heard, fleas and mites on rats are very hard to get rid of. So I got a metal trap that looks like the kind they use on all those wildlife shows that was rather pricey, and this tiny plastic one called the "Victor" which is two tiny plastic boxes with sliding doors and a little catch which percariously balances so that the doors stay open, but if something steps on edge the box it tips a bit and the door closes and the delicate catch keeps the trapped mouse from being able to push the door back open. Now, I never thought that one would work. I figured as soon as the mouse stepped on the edge it would tip, the door closing, but not trapping the mouse, and it would freak out and run away, but it was small and cheap, so I set it in the pantry on the shelf where the bag of rice was with some peanut butter inside.

For a couple weeks, I heard nothing and the traps lay empty. I figured the mouse (or mice) found someplace more worthwhile and moved on to pester someone else, but I left the traps just in case. Then about a week ago, I began hearing the noises again. Last night, it was above the ceiling in the corner right above my bed. It was a brazen little thing, I pounded on the wall only inches from where it was and it was stop for a moment, then go right back to chewing loudly. I was tempted to get a hammer and nails.

Today, while I was giving the rat cage it's weekly cleaning, a heard the click of something being knocked over inside the pantry. Immediately I suspected the trap, though I hoped I was wrong. (I was nervous and didn't want to think it was actually getting into the apartment again.) I opened the pantry door and one of the Victor traps was closed. Now I was even more nervous. I gently picked it up. It didn't seem heavier than normal. I listened, I didn't hear anything move inside. I gave it a gentle shake to feel if weight shifted inside... and screamed as something jumped out at me from the pantry. Now, I'm ashamed to say this, as an animal lover, and specifically a rat lover, but I shrieked like the girl I am. My husband is calling from the other room to try and find out what's wrong, but I can only shriek again as I see this unbelievably fast little thing dash across my kitchen floor. Exactly as I had predicted the mouse set off the trap without actually being caught, and must have been hiding somewhere on the shelf while I investigated the trap.

Finally I am able to shout to my husband, "Mouse! Mouse!" and i see it hiding beside the long skirt on my dress form, staring up from me the kitchen floor. It is adorable. But it still has to go. I stare back at it for a moment, then reach behind me and grab the top of a box, planning on trapping it underneath. I try, but it is far to fast for me, and it dashes between my legs, and somewhere behind me. Now, I was hoping it went back into the pantry and back into the wall, however it does that, and not into my studio, because my studio is unbelievably cluttered with paper, boxes, art supplies, and a mess of other things, and it could live there for a million years and never be found. I look around, and find no trace, so I go back to cleaning. Later on I'm at my computer (in my studio) and I see something peek out from behind a stack of paintings and dash back in. Drat. So I remove the paintings, so at least it can't chew those up, and try to corner it into a mailing tube, but to no avail. I loose sight of it again and after searching for a while, I give up, planning on going through and cleaning the entire studio in the morning. I leave the pantry door open a crack, still hoping it'll just go back into the wall and leave me alone.

Around 11:00pm, I'm about to get ready for bed, I don't remember why, but I go into the pantry again. The same Victor trap is closed again. I know I set it back up to be open. Very nervously, I check around the whole shelf, making sure nothing is hiding, ready to jump at me. I see nothing. Gingerly, I pick up the trap. It doesn't feel any heavier. But I think I hear something. Carefully, I tip it back and forth. I'm pretty sure now that something is in there. What the heck am I going to do with it?

I get the other live trap, the wildlife-y one, and I set it off so it closes. I open one end, then tip it up, so the mouse couldn't just run back out. Then, nervously, I open the lid and dump the contents. Out falls a mouse and a few little mouse poos.

For some reason, I was amazed. I just couldn't believed it actually worked and here was this little mouse, trapped. A little girl, just so you know. She looked so sweet, and so terrified. So I got some rat food, and dropped it into the trap through the hinge cracks, and fixed a little water bottle into it. (Hopefully she figures out how to use it.) Then I put the entire trap inside our rat carrier, and the rat carrier inside it's cloth cover so there could be absolutely no way it can get out. The I put the entire setup outside our apartment in the hallway so if it does Houdini it's way out, it'll at least have a chance of not coming back in here, and bothering my rats. And tomorrow even when my husband gets back from work we'll drive down the road to this little place in the woods with paths and water and shelter and food and hiding places, and everything a little mousey could desire and it's a good couple miles away from our house.

So, hopefully, this is the end of our mouse troubles. I desperately wish that she was the only one, and now we can go our separate ways, and live out our lives. However I'm proud of myself for catching her, and very happy that I used live capture traps.

Illustration Friday: The Blues

Homage to the Empress of the Blues

This piece went along with the poem by the same title, which referred to the singer Bessie Smith.

This week on Wild Kingdom...

Waiting

I haven't shared this information with anyone but my husband yet, but I need to share, and no one reads this unless I post on Illustration Friday anyway...
I was contacted by a publishing company a few weeks ago and they said they may be interested in having me illustrate one of their upcoming children's books. They sent me the text and asked me to do a rough layout for the cover and an inside spread of the stories I was interested. I sent in sketches for three of the five they had, and now I'm waiting. They said they would get back to me after the 3rd, and they want to be in contract by the 15th, so I'm assuming I'll know by then. I'm nervous though and this waiting is a little tense. Which is why I didn't tell anyone. My family and friends of course would be interested and asking every time I talked to them, "Did you hear from them yet? Did you get it?" Which would make me very nervous. I know I could do a great job with any of those books, and I really liked the stories, but for now all I can do is patiently wait.

Illustration Friday: Green

I know it's a bit late in the week, but I couldn't miss an opportunity to post a piece for my favorite color in the world, green. Of course, when I did a self portrait it had to be covered in green. My website, also very green.
Just remember, it's not easy being green, and Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.

Gotta love green.

Illustration Friday: Communication

Conversation

Another piece from school. So it's true, I haven't put up any new work since Christmas, but that will change. I just signed a contract to design several icons for a local restaurant that they will use on their menus and in their decor. I'm pretty excited about it. Finally, some more illustration work! I can now come out of hibernation.