My fiance surprised me with a weekend trip to Paris for my birthday this year (that sounds like a line out of a romantic movie). We stayed across the street from the Louvre. He was even patient enough to sit with me while I, as he called it, “sketched this painter painting a painting of a painting.”

Needless to say, it was a great birthday.

Now through the end of August I will be donating 10% of art sales to Ocean Conservancy, which “has assembled a rapid response and recovery team to address the human and environmental needs in the aftermath of the [Gulf Coast oil] spill.”  With an estimated 5,000 barrels/210,000 gallons of oil leaking into the ocean daily, we greatly need the expertise of such organizations.  You can also directly support their work here.

Click here to view the embedded video.