I’ve just completed this new print for sale on Etsy, featuring a frolicking elephant and one of my husband’s favorite sayings, “All Sunshine Makes a Desert.” It’s a traditional Arabic aphorism handed down to my husband by his mom, who has a wealth of interesting phrases and sayings from Lebanon, where she is from. It basically means that if things were perfect all of the time, it might not be such a good thing, or, put another way, that we need all different experiences, including adversity, to make us well-rounded people. My husband tends to bring out this phrase when I’m complaining about something!

The elephant in a rainstorm was inspired by an episode of BBC One’s show Africa. It’s the same as their show Life, but focusing just on Africa, and I highly recommend it if you love nature shows! In this particular episode a family of elephants is looking for water during the dry season in Africa, and spoiler alert, it ends fairly sadly for one elephant. But it really illustrates the point that things like rain and grey skies are definitely necessary, even if they ruin our picnics and keep us inside on a Saturday, and in the case of an elephant rain is what allows him to thrive. So my elephant is rejoicing in the rain, and is full of colorful patterns and flowers that are being nurtured by the rain.

The print is for sale here, and I hope you remember “All Sunshine Makes a Desert” the next time your pool party is rained out!

I just added this owl print to my Etsy shop! I know it’s a little late to be getting on the owl bandwagon, but I thought, why not! They’re fun to draw, and so many people love the feathered little guys. I actually consider myself somewhat of an expert on owl items, because when I was growing up my mom was a big collector of owls. She had a shelf full of all different sorts of owls, as well as a custom-made owl chess set. The real piece de résistance was our bathroom, which was wallpapered with a very cool owl print. It was like the walls were covered in all different black and white owls, which would stare at you as you went about your, ahem, business. Some of my friends were a little unnerved by the owls initially, but sooner or later they got used to it, and eventually instead of saying “I’m going to the bathroom” we would just say “I’m going to visit the owls!” So you can see, owls were a very important part of my upbringing, and I’m excited to have a fun, colorful owl print to add to my Etsy shop! I hope you enjoy it!

I just added this llama print to my Etsy shop! It’s the latest in my series of animals with fun phrases. I knew I wanted to draw a llama, because they’re funny looking and fluffy and who doesn’t love a llama? I sketched out this prancing guy one day, and I just had to make him into a print. For a while I struggled with what wording to put with him. Yo Llama? Llama Llove? I even had some very interesting suggestions from friends over happy hour one day. Finally, I settled on a simple, celebratory “Hooray!” and I think it fits this llama’s attitude pretty well. I hope this llama brightens up your Friday! (Can I say “llama” one more time? Llama! There, I did it.)

I just posted this new illustration as a print for sale on Etsy! Who doesn’t love a turquoise vintage bike, and why not have a lion riding it? And every lion out for a fun bike ride needs his dog along for the ride in a basket up front. Drawing this made me think about my own beloved vintage Schwinn (which I “stole” from my mom — thanks, Mom!) and how lovely it is to ride it around the neighborhood when the weather is nice. I certainly couldn’t ride it now, with four inches of snow on the ground, but I look forward to when I can take it for a spin again soon!