Happy Hippos

It all started with a photo of a hippo mama and her baby.

I loved the joy between the mama and baby.

Then, at a restaurant, my grown up son (34 yrs old)

gave me a new gnome for my garden:

a gnome with a bare butt burrowing into the ground.

For some reason, it made me laugh and laugh and laugh

til I almost cried

And I thought, how delightful that my son can still make me laugh!

I used more of a dabbing technique which gives the skin a little more texture, I think.

After posting it on Facebook, a friend from Hutto, TX remarked that her town was the only town in the USA to have the hippo as a mascot and she loved the painting.

This made me want to paint more hippos!!

Of course, I thought of Ogden Nash's famous hippo poem.

Barely fit, but there it is

And then, I thought to make another painting where the Hippo is the mascot for Hutto.

Little H's coming out of his mouth seemed to work nicely.

But the story doesn't end there.

I mailed them off to Hutto and unfortunately, there was postage due.

My friend didn't get to the post office on time so the letter was sent back.

I waited and waited and waited ( almost a month).

So I decided to repaint both etegami.

I've never attempted to re-paint but it turns out 

that it is a lot easier than the initial painting.

But there definitely are differences.

My Hutto friend ended up getting all four since the wayward envelope finally came back .
I figured no one else would need a Hutto Hippo etegami :)