My house has mice. Deer mice, to be precise. They are agonizingly, painfully, wretchedly adorable, with enormous black eyes, teeny little noses, neat little feet, and a regrettable tendency to crap in the silverware drawer. In some parts of the country, these little charmers carry hantavirus, so if I suddenly stop posting, you know that I was finally Done In By Cuteness, which is sort of how I expect to die.* Anyway, because of this, and my affection for silverware that does not cohabitate with mouse poo, I set out livetraps, and every week or so, some tiny, big-eyed little darling is waiting nervously for me under the sink. Then I take them out to the empty field a few blocks away and release them, and they bound away, probably astonished to be alive and telling all the other deer mice about how they were abducted by aliens, taken aboard a strange craft, while the aliens conversed in a strange language ("Crap, another one? How do they keep getting in here?!") and finally dumped in an empty field far from home.**

Somehow, this experience and my desire to play with some lighting techniques, and these long narrow mats I picked up and have been looking to use, gave rise to this, the Fairy Godmouse, who visits downtrodden mice in the night, magically changing the lucky rodent into the prettiest carrier of hantavirus at the ball, and leaving gifts in the silverware drawer for the rest of us.

Watercolor, Faber&Castell pens, acrylic ink, 4 x 10ish, original for sale, prints available, visit my website, or send me a note if I haven't updated yet.


*Although my money is still on 'trampled in a freak rain of wildebeests.'

**Anything they claim about probes, however, is a filthy lie.