This week's Illustration Friday exercise, "signs," sent me off into a weird, dark-ish place that is, nevertheless, wildly amusing to me. Scarym huh?

Anyway, I call this one "Sign of the Times."

This week's Inspire Me Thursday prompt is "circles."

Almost immediately, I got this image in my head and sketched it out a couple of times in my journal before I decided to use chalk on red rosin paper.

I made the circles, outlined them with a black Sharpie, then decided I wanted a higher contrast and some dimension to the piece. So I cut out the circle things, arranged them a little differently than the original composition, and adhered them to a piece of scrap watercolor paper with 3D adhesive dots.

I call it "Blue Moon."

This is an ancestor nicho I made a while back. It features my mother's high school graduation photo. She was born on 5/15/1922 and gave birth to me 38 years later on 5/15/1960.

That makes me 47 today, and my mom would have been 85. Every year on our birthday, the first thing either of us thought to do was wish the other a happy birthday.

"Happy birthday, Mom," I would say to her.

"Happy birthday, Baby," she would reply.

She passed away on December 17, 2003. Since then, I've had a rough time celebrating my birthday. Still, today, I took the day off from work, spent time with my sweetie, and made art. I enjoyed the day in my own way, and I only cried a little.

I miss you, Mom. Happy birthday.

The Illustration Friday prompt this week, "citrus," sent me flying to my oil crayons. After swirling and smooshing around for a while, I came up with a composition that reminded me a little of an icon. A few smudges became eyes, nose, mouth, hair, and -- voila! -- Saint Citrusian, patron of lemonade stand owners, was born!

The Inspire Me Thursday prompt this week is "silence," a quality this odd little washed-up garden gnome has in spades. I chose to photograph him in black and white, hoping to capture the strange austerity of his uncharacteristic colorlessness.