Sophie's Bird Mobile I've been painting a mobile for Sophie. We didn't see any we liked in the store, so I've decided to make one! I drew with her next to me on the floor, painted madly late into the night while she was asleep, and worked at 5am while Paul was feeding her. I have claimed the early-morning feeding time as my Art time; I know there will be at least 40 uninterupted minutes for me to do my thing. I've been really having a great time with this: there are four birds, each a different color and with different pictures on its wings. One's blue and purple with the sky on its wings; the others are green with leaves, orange and yellow with the sun, and red with a rainbow. I have two grey twigs ready to go for the supports... I wanted everything to be as natural as possible. I loved making the colors deep and rich, I loved splashing color after color and soaking the paper, I loved cutting out the wild shapes and seeing the clean, crisp edges. Sophie and I have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar a lot and I think I am going to do some artwork with that technique — cutouts arranged from wildly painted paper to make a whole new painting. I have always loved Eric Carle and Leo Lionni and I think that will be the next direction I try.