Arachnids of Arizona - my second photo collage poster

This poster was more challenging than the beetle poster because I know much less about spiders than about beetles. I also included other Arachnids because I wanted some variety of body shapes and positions.

The other very time consuming problem was that I rarely photograph spiders on white back ground. Usually I leave then in their webs or running across the soil where I find them, I just crouch close and shoot my macro photos.  So I had to clean away the back ground, using the antiquated Microsoft Digital Image Standard 2006 Editor. I have photoshop elements. I found it more cumbersome for this task.

Spiders do not only have 30 percent more legs than beetles, those legs are also sporting lots of hairs and bristles that cannot be neglected. But I learned to carefully and tightly cut around those gawky appendages because there was no way to reach a pleasing arrangement without overlapping them in many places.

 I am glad that I tackled this challenge. Over the last 10 years, I had accumulated, and with the help of the experts identified, hundreds of  photographs of AZ spiders.  Now I could finally make some use of those photos besides just accumulating them in my Flickr Arachnid folder.  In the process of designing the poster I learned a lot about the diversity of our spiders, the multitude of different families, characters that identify them and some typical behaviors.

Now, a not even a couple of weeks after the poster was first shown on Facebook, the first order from the poster printer has arrived and is sold out, shipped all over the US. Thank you to everybody who ordered one!  Of course it came again with template and list.

At the last minute I decided to change the title of the poster, It is now called Arachnids of Arizona to better match Beetles of Arizona.

Tucson's Hispanic heritage

In 1991 I was invited to work at the physiology department of the University of Tucson. So I arrived with mostly professional interests to do research and teaching at the Medical School. But I became immediately fascinated with the multicultural aspects of the Old Pueblo. In fact, it was the warm embrace of both the Native American and the Hispanic communities that made me feel welcome, comfortable with my artistic pursuits and soon opened the way to galleries and art shows.

Of course I responded with many paintings of beautiful people and colorful traditions. I am now reviving those paintings that are still very dear to me in several series of artists greeting cards. The Folklórico and Mariachi set is the first one.

Each set of 7 cards with envelopes comes in a clear box that features the image above at its back.  The set costs $ 20. (plus shipping and tax if appl.) 

One more Cat Comission

My clients who ordered the pretty cat-with-daffodil-portrait liked it so much that they came back for a painting of another one of their beloved cats. Again in their beautiful garden. It's so different from our desert setting here in Arizona, it reminds me of our garden in Germany. The sweet-faced Mia was set off nicely by flowers.  For the male tabby Aldo, rock garden and blue spruce seem a fitting back drop.

Maybe you enjoy a step-by-step  view of the new painting. Tabbies present the most difficult painting problems - I was trying to find a balance between looseness and enough detail to make him recognizable.