Elaine Miller Bond and The Animals

I, am clearly not a nature girl. I don’t hike, camp, ski, or even bike ride. I have an appreciation for Mother Nature, and believe that watermelons may prove the existence of a god, but I would rather be trapped in my studio than going scuba diving any day. I do however have a soft spot for animals, my four legged fluff balls especially. 

Bonnie and Bailey. Aka: Beasts of the Western Wild

                     

                       I recently had the good fortune to meet my new friend, Elaine Miller Bond. 

My beautiful new friend Elaine, and her beautiful new friend, Horsey.

Elaine is one of those people who is talented in so many ways. She is an accomplished writer and photographer. She is a photojournalist who has contributed articles to papers all over the San Francisco Bay Area.  Her passion and area of expertise:  nature and wildlife.

Love is sweet....

Elaine has recently published her second book, Dream Affimals: Affirmation +Animals, and I just finished reading it. Turns out Elaine is also a talented illustrator.  I must say her illustrations are fantastic. I know how challenging drawing fur is and getting animals to look gestural, not stiff, and she did an excellent job.

Amanda the panda, and her baby, Sadie.

  

 And the content, well, as a person who needs some daily positive thinking, this book delivers. Elaine uses animal habits and characteristics to draw positive affirmations that we can use in our daily lives. For example, the giant panda affirmation is “See beyond black and white” and the blue whale  affirmation is “Love big”, due to the whales ½ ton heart.

Yes, I am indeed the walrus...

I learned lots of cool animals facts such as butterflies can taste through their feet the flavors of the different leaves they land on, and how one coyote eats up to 5 rodents per day, which I must admit, makes me like coyotes, a lot.

You can learn more about Elaine and her books on her website: http://www.elainemillerbond.com/ and you can check out Dream Affimals at:  http://www.elainemillerbond.com/dreamaffimals.html

Part of what I love about Elaine is that she looks nothing like a nature girl, and I truly can not imagine her in hiking boots, but rather, in platform mary janes from Tokyo.

Pursuing the path of an artist can be challenging at times, ok, a lot of the time.  But like the wolverine, I will keep my fighting spirit!