Fireweed in pen and watercolour pencil

Illustration Friday's prompt is pioneer this week (bit odd for Christmas, I suppose, but it worked for me) and, being the nerd naturalist that I am, my brain immediately went to pioneer species. Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) is an early coloniser of cleared or burned areas (as its name suggests) and can often be found as a bright contrast to the charred tree remnants around it.

The flowers are also pretty good in salads.

As always, click on the thumbnail for a larger version.

Just some watercolour silliness

These are... not much, really. I'm only posting them because I didn't manage to do anything (yet... but if I haven't managed it yet it's probably not going to happen) for last week's Illustration Friday and I thought that the blog might be feeling lonely or neglected.

Ok, not the last part.

But anyway.

What you see here is exactly what the post title would lead you to expect. I played with the watercolours a bit while I was housebound during the last cold spell. Oh, wait. Not the last cold spell. The second-to-last.

Not that it matters.

But anyway. Again.

Up top? Some nonsense with weird washes, salt, an emery board, and a drinking straw. What's it supposed to be? Nothing.

Below? Something a little more somethingish. I have a collection of mini bottles (I think they were given out in laundry soap or tea or something when I was a kid. My grandmother saved them for me). And these are some of them.

The end.

I really have no idea what to think of this post.

Sea Turtle in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is hatch. And this is a sea turtle. Of some sort. The source I got my resource photos from didn't say which species.

My apologies to anyone who actually knows more about turtles than I do (which is... a lot of people, really. I'm a mammalogist by training. I like reptiles, but that's about as far as my expertise goes) for the lack of detail. I was just hoping to get enough to give the idea of the face. For whatever reason, it amuses me that baby turtles are born already looking mildly peeved about the world they've ended up in.

Yeah, I don't know either.

Wild Purple Clematis in watercolour

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is entangled. I know this particular version of wild clematis doesn't look terribly tangled, but that's because this is more what it looks like when it's trailing along the ground rather than climbing. When it's trained on a trellis it gets extremely entangled on itself. And anything else that's in its path.

So why doodle it this way? Well, apparently the plant was hated by early horseback travellers around here. It would creep along the ground, mostly unnoticeable when it wasn't in flower, and was strong enough to trip any horse that wandered into it.

That counts as entangled, yes? I hope so.

Winter Music in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is music. I had thoughts about going abstract for this one, but in the end my brain's too tired from this past week to start thinking that way. So... a chickadee instead.

And why? Well, because they're about the only things out there still making music at this time of year. Around here, anyway. Besides, they're a favourite of mine.

Black-capped Chickadee songs (or vocalisations, if you want to go all naturalist. Which I don't at the moment) are actually pretty complex and are worth looking up. You know, rather than me looking them up for you. I'm having a bit of a lazy mind day, I guess.

My own personal music today has been 60s pop. No idea why, and nothing to do with chickadees. But there you go.

What I did at the conference

I've been away at a conference for most of this week. You know, in case you wondered.

I should make it clear that the conference was for environmental educators, not Play-doh. You have to do something to keep your hands occupied while your brain is (allegedly) engaged, though, so Play-doh it was. That and pipe cleaners.

This is the only effort I took a picture of, but the total output (as best I can remember it) was one bird, one ear, a bowl, a fish, several small vases, and a lot of general smooshing (all with the Play-doh), and a flower and a snail (with the pipe cleaners).

I should have taken a photo of the snail, really. It was kind of neat.

Anyway, I'm back now and will hopefully have something to post for this week's Illustration Friday sometime in the next day or two.





If I don't decide to just spend the weekend sleeping, that is.

Blur in watercolour and pigment pen

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is blur. Well, hey. Blur is right up my alley, seeing as how I'm nearsighted and astigmatic. All I have to do is take off my glasses and anything that's more than half a metre from my face is nothing but blur. Spread-out blur, at that.

Yeah, welcome to my world.

The camas should probably be more blue-purple than I have it here, by the way. I just felt like purple-purple, that's all.

As usual, click on the thumbnail for a bigger version.

English Oak Seedling in pen and ink

No scanner as usual since I'm at my father's place, but the photo's enough to give the idea until I have the chance to scan the thing at work. If I remember.

Anyway, this week's Illustration Friday prompt is skinny. I went with an oak seedling (figuring seedlings are pretty skinny compared to the trees they'll become) and used my Pigma brush pen. Bit of a different thing for me since I usually go for more detail with the Micron, but it was kind of fun to be more graphic for a change.

Source material was a combination of seedlings from stock photos. We definitely don't have any English Oaks in my part of the world.

Hold Fast in graphite

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is fast. Fast is just one of those weird words, you know? Like cleave. I've always found it a bit odd that cleave can mean both split up or adhere to. Fast? Could be speedy, could be steady, could be immovable...

Well, you see where my head went. Not sure why, but there it is. And I'm also not sure that this thing would qualify as immovable, but I'd hope it'd be relatively steady.

Oh, and I do know that this is a massively outdated style of anchor. I'm the very definition of a landlubber, though, so when I think anchor this is what I see. And although I'd consider you pretty insane if you used a non-braided natural fibre rope to tie your anchor with nowadays, I think my anchor hitch is reasonably accurate. If I remember any of my knots anymore...

Twining Honeysuckle Leaf in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is frozen.

Gah.

I have a bit of a personal thing against thinking about frozen, and our recent cold snap was all too much of a reminder that our lovely Alberta winter's not far off. I didn't want to draw cold. I couldn't even make myself draw ice cream, for pity's sake. So...

Here's frozen as in not moving rather than as in cold. This was based on a photo I took a couple of years ago. It had rained, and the surface of the underside of this Twining Honeysuckle leaf had caused a few droplets to remain rather than run off. They became interesting little lens, selectively magnifying bits and pieces of the leaf in slightly distorted ways.

That... erm... counts as frozen, right?

Hmmm...

I was just looking through the blog's Picasa album because I'm full of myself that way (I'm so very much kidding, but click on the "Doodles" slideshow on the sidebar if you're a sucker for similar punishment), and I couldn't help but notice that I've been working in pen an awful lot lately for someone who spent a good deal of time absolutely wedded to the feel of smudging graphite around on paper.

Do you suppose that means anything beyond the fact that I've been too lazy to do an actual finished piece for a while?

What if I add the comment that I'm sort of beginning to like the whole pen thing?

Just goes to show you don't know 'til you try, I suppose.

Flying V in watercolour

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is flying. This is the time of year when we see an awful lot of flying V's (and I don't mean the guitars) as the geese start heading south for the winter.

Ever notice how much geese flying in formation look like abstracts rather than birds in silhouette? I hadn't until just now...

Germs in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is germs. Having spent what seems like the last month trying to shake a very stubborn cold, the idea of doodling germs didn't exactly appeal to me.

So, we have this instead. An abstractish line study (sure, let's call it that) of something that's been all too familiar to me in the past while. And what is it, exactly? Well, maybe I should put the answer down in the comments for those who are keen to guess...

Do not adjust your set...

If anyone out there has noticed something a bit odd with any links you might have to the blog, it's just that I decided to take advantage of having my sketchbooks here at work to replace a few of the iffy photographs with actual scans. Sorry if I've messed with your brains, folks.

Sunflower bud in pen and ink

Hey! A scan rather than a bad photo!

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is pattern. I could have so many ideas for that word. Pattern's a bit of a thing with me, as anyone who's tried to figure out my pointless photography can attest to (er... check the other blog link on the sidebar if you're curious. It truly is pointless photography, though. No false advertising there). Anyway, this is just the first doodle that came to mind. There may be more later in the week, depending on how my week goes.

And why a sunflower doodle (well, almost scribble now that I look at it. Guess we're being a little free with the hatching today) for the word pattern? Well, I love patterns in nature, and sunflowers kind of fascinate me. The radial pattern of the seeds in a mature head, for example, or as in this case the overlapping pattern of the sepals in a developing flower bud.

No big message here -- I just think it's neat.

Ok, in my defence?

I've been a bit under the weather.

Also, things look a bit wonky due to lack of scanner and very warped paper. I wasn't even the one who warped the paper, but that's another story...

Anyway. This week's Illustration Friday prompt is infinite. And this? Well, the way I see it, if he really put his mind to it a lonely amoeba could make an infinite amount of friends.

Or seemingly infinite, anyway.

Um, yeah. That's all I have to say, I guess.

Except click on the thumbnail if you want to make it bigger.

Pasqueflower in watercolour

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is welcome. Since I don't usually do much with people but tend to associate welcome with them, it stumped me slightly.

Until I thought of how welcome flowers are after an Alberta winter, that is.

The reference for this doodle was a photo of a Pasqueflower (Prairie Crocus) that was just barely open at the time. Pasqueflowers aren't the same as the European Crocuses that many people grow; the only things they really have in common are being purple (I know, I know, not all crocuses are purple...) and being early to blossom. The one big difference between them is that Pasqueflowers are very, very fuzzy.

Anyway, with their purple flowers and bright yellow centres, they're definitely a welcome sight after a long, drawn-out winter.

Something or other in graphite

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is strong. And this... is a really, really quick doodle. And a not terribly great photograph since I don't have a scanner here.

Anyway.

Everyone knows that egg shells are brittle. The arched structure of the egg itself is incredibly strong, though. Strong enough that if you properly line up the eggs you can easily support a book. Or an elephant.

Ok, honestly? I'm not so sure about the elephant part.

Under the lens

This past week's Illustration Friday prompt was magnify, which is a really good one and I had lots of ideas. Unfortunately, it's been too hot in my apartment to feel like doing anything except melt, which I've come very close to. I had to do something before the week was out, though, so here's a quick contribution from the little modelling clay men.

Remember, boys and girls: it's not nice to put your friends under the magnifying glass.

Pointless building

So, I've had a reasonably sleepless (reasonably sleepless? What kind of stupid phrase is that? Sleeplessness is anything but reasonable), mostly uncreative week, so in lieu of the usual Illustration Friday effort (which I'll attempt to effortise tonight, assuming that my current headache will let me) please enjoy this look at one of my unfortunate obsessions.

Pointless building, yes. And I do realise that pointlessness generally belongs on my other blog. Just think of it as taking a holiday today.

I've liked building pointless objects for as long as I can remember. I probably stacked blocks as a toddler, I was definitely a Lego kid, and...

Oh hey. A quick word about Lego. Yes, I was a girl who liked Lego, and liked it long enough ago that it was just straight-up Lego and not all of those fancy themed kits you find nowadays (and you kids get the hell off my lawn...). My Lego time was spent building houses, mostly. Why houses? Well, why not?

Anyway. I had Lego, I had Canadian Logs (which were, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Canadian version of Lincoln Logs), and I'm pretty sure I also had Tinker Toys back when the pieces were still all wooden and a lot smaller than the picture in the link makes them look now.

Not dangerous at all, no.

Yeah, I liked building things. And that hasn't changed much. I still (sadly, for a person of my age) have my building toys, and when I can't be bothered to do anything constructive (ha! Constructive! I kill me) I've been known to get out my toys and just build.

It was that kind of week, boys and girls.





So. Let's introduce the toys. In the first two photos, magnetic sticks with ball bearings. There are a few different brands of these out there, and I can't remember what brand mine are so I won't bother trying to endorse anything specific.

In the third photo, coin connectors featuring exactly one hundred pennies. And yes, I did count them.

In the last three photos, a silly desk toy consisting of a magnetic base and way too many tiny little screws. So much fun to clean up afterwards. And you've just gotta love that Wave O' Screws at the bottom, right?

So what's the point of all of this?





There is no point.

Aren't you paying attention?

At least read the post title, people.

This is just something to do with my hands when I'm thinking of other things, or sometimes when I'm not thinking of anything at all.

I'm not sure why I do it. It's probably connected to the whole OLF thing, which I'm sure you'll agree with when you notice how much more it's about the patterns of building rather than the end result.

You see, I don't usually build with a reason. I build pointless things. Things that have no purpose and don't emulate anything useful.

I do like to build strong things, though.

That would explain all of the triangles and hexagons, I guess.

I also like my things to be symmetrical. They almost always are, except when I'm playing with the screws. It's hard to make them do symmetrical things.

That frustrates me, to be honest. I don't play with the screws much.

I just realised that I'm kind of letting you people into my messed-up little world here. Ah well. Yay for blog therapy.

Let's see... what else can I tell you about my toys? Not a whole lot, really.

I could mention that if you're thinking of getting into building things with pennies you should look into developing some serious callouses. The little plastic connectors are really stiff and after a while your fingers build up all kinds of annoying sore spots from forcing the things together. But then, I also have pretty wimpy hands when it comes down to it.

If anyone's wondering, at this point in the post I'm just typing enough words to maybe make all of these silly photos line up without overlapping. Serves me right for uploading them the way I did, though. If I'd made the thumbnails bigger they would have gone down the page very nicely without my having to do a thing about it...

That's got to be good enough now. I hope you enjoyed the open house, so to speak. Check back often, when we'll probably NEVER be doing this again.







Hmm. I wonder how the Little Modelling Clay Men would look doing a bit of pointless construction...

Um.

How to explain this? I need to sleep more would, I think, pretty much cover it.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is caution. And... I really have no idea where this came from.

Still, it was nice of this snake in the grass to try to warn people that he's there, don't you think?

Silly thing to do while avoiding other things...

So I was looking for something when I came across some scraps of textured paper from a project ages ago and figured that I may as well play with them since they weren't really big enough to use for anything of importance. That, of course, led to taking out some photocopier paper to play with because I couldn't manage much detail on the thicker paper. That in turn led to me forgetting what I was looking for in the first place...

Yeah. Did I mention that I'm a five-year-old?

And yes, all of the paper has since gone to the recycle bin. You know, in case you wondered.

Symphoricarpos in pen and ink

Another (very, this time) quick doodle at work...

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is Wrapped. Well, as I've said once or twice or a few more times than that, I work as a naturalist. This time of year, wrapped to me goes straight to cocoons and insect metamorphosis. And yes, I am a nerd. Thanks for noticing.

Something has definitely wrapped itself up in the top leaf of this Western Snowberry branch. I'm not sure what the something is, exactly, but I didn't think it was a terribly kind idea to poke around and find out.

Borage buds and flower in watercolour

Yep, doodling via paint this morning rather than pen. To be honest, so far I like sketching flowers better than painting them. I'll keep practicing, though.

Today's reason for doodling was that I bought a couple of brushes the other day and hadn't gotten around to trying them out. Now I've tried one, at least...

I'm a five-year-old

If I wasn't, why would I have spent five dollars (um... Liquidation World, people) on a machine that spins a card so that I can throw paint at it?

I swear to you, I am so five.

Incidentally, this is a good way to decorate a room as well if you're not watching how high the spinning plate is moving up in the column. Washable surfaces recommended, boys and girls.

Impatiens in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is Impatiens, so...

Hmm? Impatience, not impatiens?

Oh well.

This was a very quick doodle done while manning the front desk at the nature centre where I work. Again. I've really got to start breaking that habit.

Er, the doodling part, not the working part.

Oak leaf in pen and ink

Manning the front desk again, and doodling to give my brain something to do (kind of a slow day here). I'm assuming that this leaf comes from a bur oak. I mean, I know that it's an oak leaf; it's the bur part that I'm assuming. Oak trees don't grow naturally in this part of Alberta, so of course it makes perfect sense that we have one growing right outside of the Nature Centre's back door...

I'm not terribly happy with this doodle, but I'm posting it anyway. As I said yesterday, the lighting at the front counter is really not great for trying to draw any sort of detail, and I won't even tell you how many times I had to move to find a shadow that wasn't caused by three lights at once. Frustrating.

Modified Branch in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is modify. Beavers have to be some of the most insistent modifiers in nature, I figure. They modify forests by removing trees, modify streams by turning them into ponds, and one apparently decided to modify this branch with its teeth.

This was done (well, started) at the front desk of the Nature Centre where I work. It's hot enough outside that hardly anyone is on the trails and that made my afternoon rove a complete washout, so I thought I'd make myself useful and man the counter for a while.

Funny thing is, I'd never noticed until now just how bad the lighting is at our front desk. Bad for doodling, anyway.

I dunno... cat on bed?

To be honest, I wasn't really planning on posting this since it's just me still playing with the watercolours. Ah well. If I change my mind tomorrow it can easily be gotten rid of, right?

So. Max? Probably not the most picturesque model since he tends more to the long and muscular type of cat rather than the cute fluffball. At least he was sitting still (or lying still, as it were) for a change.

All I was aiming for here was to see what the paint looked like with sepia Micron detailing. And now I know.

Pods in pen and ink

There were things I should have been doing this afternoon. Instead, I raided my father's pea patch.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is Idle. Eating someone else's peas counts as idle, right? I don't think it counts as stealing, since I'm house-sitting for him and they'd just get old otherwise...

I suppose that if the act of eating peas doesn't count as idle, we could say that the pods themselves are idle since they're no longer incubating peas.

Um, yeah. This doodle was done very quickly and with not a lot of attention to detail since it's way too hot out there at the moment to concentrate for any length of time. I don't know why I didn't think to find a bit of shade before I started, but it's a little too late to worry about that now.

Hollowed Pepper in watercolour

Hello and welcome to Dee Tries to Paint. Again.

What can I say? Still game to give it a go. It'll never improve otherwise.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is hollow, and this is, of course, a radish.

Juuust seeing who was paying attention. Sorry for the darkish photo, by the way, but the office scanner was insisting that it was seeing this doodle (can it still be a doodle if it's painted? I hope so. I like doodles) as yellow, which it's not. So, since I have minimal editing software on this computer, back to iffy photography rather than a nice clean scan.

The odd thing about this particular effort is that I really don't like green peppers and I've never hollowed out one in my life. Ah well. Extra points for the challenge of an unpleasant subject?

Trembling Aspen in pen and ink

Look! It's a scan rather than my usual iffy photograph. That's because I'm at work, where scanners live. As opposed to my place, where there isn't even a computer.

Anyway.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is Shaky, and Nerd Naturalist Extraordinaire here immediately thought of Trembling Aspen. The name of the tree comes from the flattened petioles (stalks) of the leaves, which cause the leaves to shake or tremble with any tiny little breeze.

I doodled this piece of aspen before I had to open the building this morning. Yes, I got to work early on a Saturday just so I could draw a tree.

Gotta wonder sometimes about priorities and this whole doodling thing...

Worn in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is Worn, and this... is my ankle brace. One of several, unfortunately. I change them out depending on what I'm doing and how much support I need at the time.

It's worn because my ankle is worn. Out, that is. An old injury means there's not much holding the joint together anymore. Or at least not as much as there should be.

Ah, ankle braces. How do I loathe thee? I won't bother counting the ways. We don't need to be here that long.

How strange is it that I've taken to doodling braces, anyway? Here's hoping that this is the first and last time. I definitely don't want this to become Compression Bandage Central.

That'd be weird even for me.

And speaking of weird...

I thought I'd see if the little modelling clay men could make an ankle brace seem like fun. Turns out that even they can't make a jungle gym out of a necessary evil.

Ah well.

Thanks for trying, guys.

Brief bookish mutter

I probably don't have to mention this since I know that Danny Gregory already had quite a following, but I recently finished his book An Illustrated Life and I have to say I'd recommend it to anyone who's thinking of starting (or already has) an art journal. Definitely illuminating to see the various ways that people journal. Some are so precise, and others are very free. If anything, you get a real message of just do it. Stop worrying, stop fussing, and just DO it. Maybe if I hit myself over the head repeatedly with the book I'll remember that.

Also, I was wondering if anyone out there has done or is doing Wreck This Journal? I just started mine a few days ago, and I have to say that it's altogether too much fun. Even if it does go against every single instinct of mine to buy a book specifically to destroy it... but then that's entirely the point, right?

Abstract something. Now with more cats...

This was me trying out some colour washes. Then I thought I may as well make some blotches on top of the washes. Then I thought I'd ought to trace the blotches. Then I thought I should probably cut the whole thing out. Then I thought I'd pin it to the fridge with some cat-shaped magnets.

Why?

I DON'T KNOW.








Have I mentioned my inner five-year-old lately?

Petal Drift in watercolour

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is Drifting. So... single petal drifting (more or less) away from its parent flower.

I hardly ever paint (is it glaringly obvious? Yeah, I know), but I decided recently that I'll never paint unless I actually practice. Funny how that works. Anyway, I took advantage of a sale to get myself a decent-but-not-frighteningly-expensive travel box of half-pans, and we'll see if having paints that are meant to be painted with (as opposed to those meant-to-make-a-mess-with sets we used all through elementary school) will make me a little more enthusiastic about trying my hand.

You never know, right?

Oh, and the flowers are based somewhat loosely on one of our apple trees, but I decided to make them a lot pinker because... because I felt like it, I guess.

More guest artwork

This time from Avery, who doesn't yet have an oddly food-related internet pseudonym.

This signed original is currently hanging on my wall, if anyone would like to make a bid. It's signed, remember. And an original.

Guest artwork

This is hot off the presses, so to speak.

It's finger painting. By Wheat.

I share an office with Wheat.

We obviously work very hard...

Unfolding in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is unfold.

I know a lot of people call these Cootie Catchers, but at my elementary school they were known as Fortune Tellers (I guess we were a pretty tame bunch) and if you were a female student chances are that you had made at least a couple dozen of them by the time you reached Grade Six. Personally, I hadn't made one for at least twenty-five years before tonight (yesss... I'll reluctantly admit to having made one or two AFTER elementary school. They were a bit less than tame, though. Let's just say that they were adolescent and leave it at that), and it's scary how easy it was to fall back into the familiar folds.

I'm not sure why we were obsessed with the men we were going to marry when we were making these things. I suppose it's not that unusual, but it seems fairly... conventional now, especially when you consider that we weren't that far removed from the bra-burning 60s. I have a feeling that my eight-year-old self would have been horrified to find out that one day I'd decide I wasn't interested in marrying anyone.

Good thing I'm not eight anymore, I guess.

----------

In other news, I gave myself a little treat this week and bought some new Pigma pens. A sepia set this time. I love the black Micron I already have, but now I have Microns in two sizes, a Pigma Graphic, and... A BRUSH PEN!

Ok, maybe it's not that exciting. Still, though. New toys. Gotta love it.

Winter Craving in soft pastels

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is craving. I haven't had the pastels out for a very (VERY) long time, so I figured it was an excuse to do something a little different from my usual line drawings. This quick sketch (I know, I know. Technically it's a pastel painting but I'm so much not a painter that I cringe whenever I try to call it that) is meant to show what I generally spend most of each winter craving: something that's not winter.

I really don't like winter.

It'd be great if wishing could make the snow start to decay and cause instant flowers to spring up, but since that's never going to happen it's just going to have to remain a craving.

Click on the photo for a larger version. You know, if you want to.

Drawing Day

Hey, folks. It's Drawing Day today, and unlike last year's Drawing Day I managed to get my drawing uploaded on the actual Drawing Day.

Yay me.

Yay me for the uploading part, anyway. Not so yay me for the inability to properly plan my time this morning. The result? Yet another half-assed doodle that was too obviously done in about five minutes. Ah well. It's the good intentions that count, right?

The doodle, in case you hadn't recognised it (and I really wouldn't blame you if you hadn't), is of the only readily available model I had at hand, otherwise known as my African Violet. His name is Edgar.

Ok, so he doesn't really have a name. If you're going to be a model you really should have one, though.

Edgar was an odd choice for me because even though I doodle a fair number of plants I'm used to doing fairly crisp leaf renderings. Can't do that with an African Violet, though. They have fuzzy leaves. Or in the case of my version, absolutely and completely shaggy leaves.

Ah well.

Oh, sorry. I've already said the ah well part.

Anyway.

Happy Drawing Day, everyone.

Cracked things in pen and ink... and other stuff

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is Cracked. Lots of ideas for this one.

Too many, maybe. I had trouble trying to sort them out.

Nothing to do, I guess, but start doodling.

I was thinking at first of windshields or something like that, but I wasn't in the mood for a line study and ended up getting bored pretty quickly there. Then I thought that maybe I'd just do a whole page of various crack patterns, but that started to look a little... um... not what I wanted.

I hate having more than one idea. It means that I have to be decisive, and I'm just not very good at that.

Still thinking at this point in the moleskine, obviously.

Then I thought of trees.

I tend to think of trees a lot, really. I like playing with branching.

Old, cracked tree it is, then. And yes, this one's my real entry (as usual, click on the photo for a larger version). A tree cracked by lightening, maybe, or (more likely around here) the weight of a heavy spring snowfall on branches that were just getting ready to bud out. I don't think that we had too many broken trees in the last storm (just last week... gotta love an Alberta spring, don't you?), but a couple of years ago we lost a fair number of branches (and a few trees) to a stupidly late, stupidly heavy snow.

Get the feeling that I really love snow?

Yeah. Especially in the spring...

Anyway, the tree's what I'm counting as my response to the prompt, but just for fun I thought I'd add something else. It's the return of the little modelling clay men!

Yep. I'm a five-year-old.

This one? I dunno. I'm thinking that maybe some kind of freak earthquake opened up a fault line on the sketch pad?

It's cracked, anyway.

Cracked out...

Tulip in... finger paint?

Um, yeah. "Messless" finger paint on reactive paper.

Maybe the less said about this one the better?

Although... my inner five-year-old has certainly been coming out a lot in the past couple of days, hasn't she? Makes a person wonder, really.