In 1993 we were called upon to produce the piece for that year's Artist of the Year, and we were delighted to find out the recipient would be Carl Brenders of Belgium. We are great admirers of Carl’s work.

We knew Carl is very concerned with conservation and so we decided to create a vignette of our next piece we would be doing for our “Extinct Species Series” for him. A Carolina Parakeet with Yellow Jessamine.

In 1994 Bob Farrelly, of PRWAS, called again to have us create a piece for Simon Combes, of England (formerly of Kenya). It was unprecedented that they called upon the same artist twice. We were pleased but in a predicament as to subject matter for we had never met Simon.

Lindsay Scott (another incredible artist) helped us out with the suggestion of a Lilac Breasted Roller, which is native to Kenya where Simon grew up. At this time he was making extensive trips to Kenya. We knew nothing of the roller so we did a field trip to Lindsay and Brian’s in Ventura, CA then to the Santa Barbara Zoo to study the specimen in their aviary.

Due to health issues we were unable to attend the 1994 PRWAS so we missed our opportunity to meet Simon. The summer of 2002 found Simon in southern Oregon at a gallery show. We paraded ourselves in and eight years later we finally met Simon and his Fiancée - we caught him off guard which is fun for us but terribly unpleasant when on the other end!