This past weekend, my son and I built a kite out of goods found around the house. At first the kite kept taking a nose dive down into the ground. After a while we found a good spot and then the kite took off. We then went off to practice some longboarding on the nearby sidewalk. We had a ton of fun and even though we flew a kite and riding on the longboard, it reminded me about of kiteboarding. It seems that kiteboarding is now entering the Golden Age, kind of like surfing during the Endless Summer. The sport of kiteboarding is fun and fresh, at ArtedepaulA some of our most popular shirts are kiteboarding shirts and for the ladies. (our organic cotton shirt is pictured) Next time you have a free day think about flying a kite.

I recently saw the movie the Forbidden Kingdom that starts martial arts masters Jackie Chan and Jet Lee. The reason I went to see this movie was to see the two master in a movie together. After seeing the movie what I found most interesting was the mythological character the Monkey King. As an artist I try to do my best learning various myths and lore from around the world. Much of my art, if it is not tropical in nature, covers myths. I had never heard of the Monkey King before, except maybe the Monkey King from the Jungle Book.

As I dove in to find out more about this Monkey King, I found out that he was a classic figure in Chinese culture. So here I was thinking to myself, hey I know a lot about myths, but here I was not knowing a thing about this Monkey King. I was extremely humbling to find out that such a popular character exists and to not know anything about him.

I researched about the Monkey King and found him to be a fascinating character. There is much to tell about the Monkey King, he is at heart a trickster character, kind of like Loki in Norse culture, except maybe a little less devilish of a figure. You can find out about the Monkey King at this great site. Monkey King I enjoyed this character so much I will try to work out a work of art revolving around the story of the Monkey King. It just goes to show you, you can learn something new everyday, even without trying.

Around the beginning of October I like the change in weather, the cooler air. Down here in the Keys, cool weather is a welcome break from the mind- numbing heat. October makes me think of Rock. I'm not sure why, but summer seems too bright for rock. Fall is a little darker, a little cooler. On Steechee.com I've got a rock n' roll shirt that I'm quite fond of. The image has a sword going through a heart with angel wings and a scroll saying "Rock'n'Roll". It's fun, It's Rock.

Well it has been over a year since my last post, so I figured it was time for a new post. Here it is! Yaaahhh!! Crowd goes wild. Seriously I will try to make this a weekly occurance. Maybe I should slow down a little. I'll go for once a month. In addition to Artedepaula I've added a fun kids shirt collection to my list of sites. The website is http://www.steechee.com . You can check it out and the blog about that site which is listed in the begining text. Well, what Steechee is about is cool kids clothes. As a parent I hardly find any cool shirts for my kids so I went ahead and made some up. The designs are seperated by verbs. For example for the animal section they are listed as SWIM, FLY, and WALK. The game and sports section is called PLAY. And so on and so on. If you got some kids or want some, check out the site, you won't be disappointed.

Man, I'm getting pretty bad at listing these posts, sorry about that. The mother's pendant was designed to showcase the power and beauty of motherhood. This was captured using a strong geometric shape with flower on the inside. The flowers are all covered in diamonds, symbolizing the everlasting love and strength of the mother and child relationship.

After designing the Father's Legacy Pendant, I started to wonder what would the Mother's version look like? The whole time I was constantly debating about how the Father's Pendant would look and how it was in relation to other men's jewelry. My problem with the Father's Pendant was men's jewelry was very simple and similar to each other, not much risk taking so to speak. The problem with the Mother's Pendant was exactly the opposite. There is an amazing amount of designs in women's pendants. I was going to be hard to create something new. Something that looks very different. You have all sorts of designs when it comes to women's jewelry, from the very decorative, to jewelry that is very simple. I had to create something unique to stand out from the rest. I decided to go way back when designing the mother's pendant, back to the stone age so to speak.

So instead of the lion, a symbol often used in crests, I opted for the more unusual, more gemometric sword. I didn't just choose a sword because it was a sword but because of what the sword represents. The sword represents protection, so it symbolizes the beauty of what is most close to our hearts, our family. The diamond represents purity and strength, and below the diamond is where the children's stones would be set. Each stone would represent each child, similar to what family jewelry does now, but instead of birthstones, only precious rubies and sapphires are used. A ruby for each daugher and a sapphire for each son. The sheild and sword are handcrafted in 18k gold. I designed Legacy to show meaning, to have something that your family could be proud of, not like the often tacky family jewelry that is already out there. This is something fathers, men, should be proud of wearing. Hopefully this father's day us dad's out their can have something we can be proud of something that symbolizes our family.