Shrubbery...

Spring Forward in pen & ink and inktense

2012-01-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is forward.

It just occurred to me... is "spring forward, fall back" only a North American thing for remembering what to do with the clocks in regards to daylight savings? If so, this won't make sense to a few people. Sorry about that.

My flowers and leaves are pretty much out of fiction today and the scanner has (as usual) decided that things are supposed to be yellower than I meant them to be, but that's ok with me.

Back in my lettering days I would have taken far more time setting things out (shame on me -- not even a ruler at hand this time). Considering that I was mostly just doodling this afternoon, though, I don't think it turned out too badly overall.

And still more... well, you probably know at this point.

2012-01-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

Today we're (me 'n' alllll the voices) featuring Red-osier Dogwood, which I learned as Cornus stolonifera but which is now C. sericea because plant taxonomy is apparently no fun if you're not confusing someone.

Or maybe that's just me.

Yeah, that's right. You heard me. I'm no fun if I'm not confusing someone.

And more work stuff...

2012-01-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

Today? Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis). Tomorrow? Well, I suppose you'll see.

Hey, look. It's work stuff

2012-01-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

Finally getting some more work done on a much-delayed berry bush display. This particular specimen is Buffaloberry (Shepherdia canadensis).

Slightly dangerous of me to post link photos of the actual plant that I was attempting, maybe, but what the heck. You may as well have at least some reference, right?

Silly things to do when you're shut in

2012-01-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

Shut-in by the weather, in my case. Last week? Nasty cold. So what does a person do with a week where it's not a great idea to be outside? Well, in my case some sketching and other things for work (I'll post a couple of the sketches after this, but I'm going to schedule them. No sense in having everything appear at once, after all).

Oh, and playing around with masking fluid.

You know what? Masking fluid's kind of fun.

I'm not going to bother posting any of my other "creations" since they're so obviously just me playing, but still. Masking fluid's kind of fun all right.

I'm so easily amused...

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On a totally different note, I have a brand new, still-blank pack of ATCs in my possession at the moment. Suggestions on what to do with them? They're kind of hard to make paper airplanes out of...

Pear Flower in graphite

2012-01-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is prepare. And this, done very quickly out of necessity because I'm just on a break here at work, is a pear flower and buds.

It's pre-pear.

Yeah... I know. Sorry about that. I couldn't think of anything else off the top of my head.

Flown in carbon pencil

2012-01-07T15:43:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is grounded. And here? An assortment of things that used to fly, but won't be flying anymore as far as I can tell.

The feather I hope was moulted rather than leftover from some animal's meal, although... circle of life and all of that, right? Actually, as a zoologist I have to admit that I'm not at all squicked out by food chains. They're more than a little bit necessary, after all.

The plant fruits are both wind-dispersed, and have a couple of different strategies for staying in the air as long as possible. Everyone's familiar with the parachute-bearing fruits of the dandelion, I know, although I didn't know that the fruits themselves are called cypselae rather than achenes (kind of a nerd point there, but without us nerds the world would be a much duller place. No, really. It would. Nerd power!). The other fruit is an achene, and it's the samara or key of the Manitoba Maple or Box Elder. We always called them helicopters when I was a kid, because they stay in the air by spinning as they fall. I have kind of a weird little fascination with these things, I guess, judging from how many of them I've drawn over the years.

Last but not least, I like to think that my little spiderling has just finished the one and only flight of its life. In order to spread out -- and keep from eating each other -- the spiderlings of many species will send out a long filament of silk once they're hatched, and "balloon" to another place when the wind catches the silk.

Everything here was built to be aloft (well, maybe not the spider) but has hit the dirt for the last time. Sounds pretty grounded to me.

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Incidentally, as an almost-fanatical sharpener -- to the point where I hardly used to be able to start any sort of drawing project until ALL of the pencils in the kit were sharpened even if I wasn't going to use them -- I'm stupidly proud to say that I didn't sharpen my pencil one single time while I was doing this. Not even when I got to the dandelion seed. Small steps count, you know.

Yep. More work stuff.

2012-01-05T14:43:00.003-07:00

I have nothing to say about this one except that I now loathe circles.

At lest temporarily.

Yet more work stuff

2012-01-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

I bet you're all just dying to know what I'll be drawing next, aren't you?

Hint: it's something to do with Wood Frogs.

Um, yeah.

Even more work stuff

2011-12-30T13:38:00.001-07:00

Wood Frog again; late-stage tadpole this time.

I think this particular specimen must be regressing or something. I'm honestly not sure why I started with the adult and am working my way backward.

Ah well, as long as the work gets done.

Have a great New Year's everyone. See you in a few days.

More work stuff

2011-12-29T14:45:00.001-07:00

This is attempting to be a Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica).

I'm not terribly happy with the work scanner at the moment, but this is close. Maybe a little greener than the original, but not too bad.

Wood frogs are cool, but since I'm at work right now I don't really have time to go into it. They can pretty much freeze solid in the winter, though.

Incredibly cool.

Um, sorry for that last bit. Stay tuned for the rest of the Wood Frog life cycle coming up in the next few days or so. I hope.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye... in inktense

2011-12-24T18:24:00.001-07:00

You wonder how they do it, of course: finding the feeder seconds after you've filled it, locating the new nest box, knowing exactly when to swarm Tippi Hedren...

Part of it could be an eye in the sky -- no one's better suited for it -- but I have a feeling that it has more to do with the Town Crier. After all, it's always been his (traditionally his. Sorry, ladies) business to tell everybody everything he knows about the latest news at the top of his voice.

Erm... I should mention that this week's Illustration Friday prompt is messenger, shouldn't I?

Merry Christmas, all. And stay away from seagulls and crows, just in case. And maybe even phone booths, if there are any still about...

Sink in pen & ink and watercolour

2011-12-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is sink.

Winter always gives me that sinking feeling.

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As usual, the scanner's ignored some of the background. That's ok, though -- there wasn't much to ignore this time.

Funny thing? Up to the chin in snow was the first thing I thought of for sink, but I live in an area that gets relatively little snow compared to the east (erm, knock wood).

Other funny thing? The sinking person's wearing my university colours. Didn't even notice until I scanned it. Ah well. Green and Gold, Quaecumque Vera...

Walnut in pen & ink

2011-12-10T17:00:00.001-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is separated. The two halves of this walnut shell have definitely been separated, and the shell's been separated from its meat as well.

Before I go any further, I've just noticed how scribbly today's effort is. Scribbly mood, I guess.

I love Christmas nuts -- nuts in the shell, I mean. I look forward to them all year. I wish they were available all year, to be honest. Nuts in the shell seem a lot fresher, and I like the challenge of working to get to them. Besides, nuts in the shell seem to leave a person satisfied after having eaten a lot less than you would shelled nuts.

Well, that's the way it works for me, at least.

Since I was a kid, walnuts presented a special challenge come Christmastime. I always made an extra effort to try to get the shell halves separated without cracking them. Sometimes it seemed silly, since leaving the shell intact made it that much harder to get the good stuff out, but I still prided myself on getting those shells open intact. I saved them, too.

What? There's always uses for walnut shells. They make great squirrel ornaments. And skunks. And mangers, if that's more your inclination for things to hang on the tree.

A few years ago I was looking for something in my old closet at my father's place, and I happened upon one of my forgotten walnut stashes. Two zip-bags full of walnut shell halves. I honestly don't remember when I put them there, but it must have taken at least a couple of Christmases to get that many shells. And then? I put them away like they were treasure. Kind of made me think that I just may have a problem...

Anyway. Those particular shells got taken to the nature centre where I work, where they've been used for quite a few craft days. Told you walnut shells were useful.

Today's featured shell (a fairly small, unbleached walnut. I think they taste better, to be honest) won't be squirreled away in the closet, I promise. I was thinking that I might paint it. Paint on it, I mean; not make a painting of it. No idea why, but if the results are at all interesting I imagine they'll get posted here.

Goodness knows that I've posted weirder things.

Work stuff

2011-12-09T13:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was Ground Squirrel Day for yours truly. Richardson's Ground Squirrels, for anyone who'd like to look them up. These pictures are meant to be a bit on the cartoonish side, but still be fairly identifiable. Do I like them? They'll do. But for the record, I suck at ground squirrels. Plants work better for my brain.

Adult

Burrow

Hibernation

Young

Incidentally, if you're ever planning to draw newborn ground squirrels (and I just know that you are), judging from my resource material the best colour match for their skin tone is raspberry. Who knew?

Round in inktense pencil

2011-11-27T16:26:00.001-07:00

Do inktense pencils count as ink or watercolour? They're ink-based pencils, after all, and once they're dry they aren't moving...

Anyway. This week's Illustration Friday prompt is round. These? Bubbles, I guess. More or less. I don't really have much to say about them (a shock to anyone who's familiar with this blog, I'm sure) other than they were kind of fun.

The cheap scanner has, as usual, killed some of the colour here. My oranges have turned redder than I wanted and the green a bit yellower, but the idea's still there (such as it was). What's missing a little is that the brush strokes were intentionally messy. Now they look more like mistakes, but whatever. In the spirit of round I'm gonna roll with it.

Conch in pen & ink

2011-11-12T16:08:00.001-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is silent. Today's doodle features my family conch shell. I'll get to the family part in a bit.

First of all, this thing's massive. It's nothing like the dainty, thin conch you might buy as a souvenir in Hawaii (and I know that because we also have a souvenir conch from Hawaii). It's thick, it's heavy, and it has layers almost like a sedimentary rock. It also has a hole drilled partially through it (I imagine the "partially" part was because the thing is really thick) so it could be hung on a nail. The side that was facing the wall is abraded smooth in places, because it hung for a long time that way. The rest of it is beaten up and scarred from a lot of years of abuse.

The shell is about a hundred years old, or probably more. A shell from an animal that lived a silent life in a fairly silent world (well, compared to ours). An animal that's been silent for a long time even if it could make a noise, and now its shell sits silently on a shelf.

The irony here? My great grandmother used it to call the men in from the field for meals.

A silent animal's shell prized for its carrying sound. I find that kind of neat, actually.

There's another part of this story that I find mainly confusing, though. I know for sure that my great grandmother used the shell, because my grandmother witnessed it every day as a child. The thing is... this was in Southern Alberta at the turn of the last century. Land-locked Alberta at a time when travel wasn't exactly easy and definitely wasn't cheap. How exactly did it get there?

No one I've talked to has the remotest idea.

The conch, of course, is silent on the subject.

Pet camouflage? In pen & ink

2011-11-04T13:29:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is stripes. And this?

I dunno.

Something really quick, because I'm not going to be around on the weekend.

I have no idea why it's so fat. Or peeved. Ah well.

Candy wrappers in pen and ink

2011-10-30T11:47:00.001-06:00

Just a quick (we're talking five minutes here) line study of some candy wrappers. Two mini bars and a package of gummies.

Don't judge me -- my father was the one who opened the Halloween candy early...

Spider on Rose Leaf in carbon pencil

2011-10-29T16:26:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is scary. Is it cheating that I drew something that is scary for some people but that I find fascinating?

Hey, I can understand fear of spiders. They're crawly, they seem to have a few too many legs, and the thought of them lurking around the rose bushes is enough to send some gardeners into shivers.

Me, though? My usual spider reaction is "cool. I wonder what kind it is?"

That is, I suppose, a fairly recent response. I mean, I've always tolerated spiders. Terrified of insects as a child (and the massive infestations of tent caterpillars at the time didn't help. Not being able to go outside without stepping on that wriggling blue carpet? Nightmarish.), but not so bad with spiders. I know it sounds weird, because it is weird. Best I can figure, the spiders were ok because they ate the insects.

Spiders became more of a like than a tolerate for me a few years ago when I was working on a spider display for the nature centre. I spent an entire summer photographing and drawing spiders (some of the sketches can be found via the slideshow on the blog's sidebar, for anyone interested), and when you get something like that in your head you start seeing spiders everywhere. No, wait -- that's a good thing. You start seeing spiders everywhere, you gain an appreciation for their different life styles and survival strategies, and you realise very forcefully that if it wasn't for the spiders we'd all be butt-deep in insects. They're fantastic pest control.

Of course, it didn't hurt anything that I have a fascination for comparative anatomy stemming from my university days. You can tell a lot about an animal by looking at the structure of its body parts, and spiders are beautifully built for the jobs that they do.

Yes, I meant to type beautifully there. I know I'm not going to convince most of you, but there's a great deal of beauty to spiders.

Anyway. I suppose that the idea of spiders in the roses is scary enough for most people to qualify for the IF prompt, even if my reaction was a little more on the disappointed side. Disappointed that I never did figure out what species of spider the original for this doodle was, that is. It wouldn't give me a good enough look at it to attempt an ID.

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This particular doodle started out to be a bit more precise than it ended up. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to get scribbly with carbon pencils. Maybe I need to take some time away from the pen & ink and let myself get looser again? Might not be a bad idea...

Scattered Nest in pen & ink and soluble graphite

2011-10-16T11:11:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is scattered. And this? Scattered remnants of a wasp nest.

This time of year if you're out on the trails in Alberta (for that matter, pretty much anywhere in North America that has actual winter) it's not uncommon to see paper wasp nests in pieces on the ground. In my area it's usually nests from the Bald-faced Hornet (Dolichovespula maculata, for my fellow nerds), but the nests from any paper-making species are ripe for attack. It's not like the wasps care, though. They're not using them anymore.

For all their impressive structure, paper wasp nests are only seasonal homes. They can have very high populations working in them (and protecting them,as anyone who's had the misfortune to disturb one can tell you) towards the end of summer, but by the time of hard frosts they're abandoned. Not very good winter housing, you see. A wasp colony living in a frozen paper nest has no way of keeping itself warm and active, so the wasps would be easy picking for any predators that came along. It takes a lot of costly energy to keep a whole colony going all winter anyway, so the wasps have a double problem. The solution? A little drastic-sounding, maybe, but very common with a lot of insects: let 'em all die. That's right. Pretty much the entire colony just dies off every year. The queen finds a winter burrow somewhere, and starts the whole thing over again come spring.

The abandoned nests, however, aren't exactly empty.

What's left? Well, any immature wasps that didn't quite make it, any adult wasps who were still caring for them; that sort of thing. And as soon as the colony dies off, the scavengers attack the old nest looking for goodies. Scavengers like chickadees and other non-migratory insect eaters. They'll tear apart the nests with gusto, looking for the leftovers and scattering the papery remains to the wind.

Nature, as usual, is the first and best recycler. I think that's cool, but then I'm sure no one's surprised by my finding nature cool at this point.

What Monkeys? in inktense and pen & ink

2011-10-01T12:49:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is hibernate, and my doodle is going to take a little explaining. Hibernate left me with a bit of a problem, frankly. You see, I actually did hibernate a few weeks ago when the prompt was asleep (you can find it here if you're interested), and while I could definitely use more practice with drawing ground squirrels (yep. Still avoiding that particular project) I wasn't really all that happy about just reusing an idea I'd already had.

What to do, then? I suppose I could have drawn something else hibernating, but my brain wouldn't go that direction. Instead, it went down the path of different ways animals go about waiting out harsh conditions. My brain tends to do things like that, by the way. Short attention span.

Erm, anyway. Surviving harsh conditions. Hibernation for tough winters where finding food would use too much energy. Aestivation for places where the summers are hot enough to make survival difficult. Migration for times when conditions are, for whatever reason (and there's lots of them), too tough in the home range. Brumation for reptiles (like hibernation, but the animal is slowed rather than "asleep"). Diapause, which is delayed development in unfavourable times. Cryptobiosis, which...

Hmm. Cryptobiosis. Basically, stopping everything until things get better. It's pretty fascinating stuff, and amazing to see just what an organism can survive when it's shut itself down. Animals in cryptobiotic states have been frozen, heated, left dry for years, taken into space... if you start looking at the extremes some of these things can survive it can almost change your definition of life. These are animals with a shelf life, for pity's sake.

So where does cryptobiosis lead my wandering brain? Well, Sea Monkeys, naturally.

Sea Monkeys? Oh heck yeah. Any kid my age who read comics on a regular basis knew those sea monkey ads intimately. Pets that magically appeared when you added water? Too awesome. Of course, the ads with the cute cartoon monkey-fish-things were massively misleading. And when I inevitably asked my parents to buy me some sea monkeys I was shot down pretty quickly. There was a good reason for that, though. Even better than the why do you read those stupid ads reason.

You see, my father was a junior high math/science teacher, and he had a tank of something he called brine shrimp in his classroom. When he explained that sea monkeys were really brine shrimp, I definitely had to go check them out. So off we went one day, and suddenly there they were. Sea monkeys. Brine shrimp. Whatever, there they were.

They were... weird. Sort of see-through. Too many legs. Definitely not monkeys. And I have to say, seeing them in person certainly cured me of sea monkey fever.

Later on, though, I became sort of fascinated by the way that those dry little cysts could become living organisms just by being put in water. It led me to find out more about cryptobiosis. Which led me to finding out more things about more animals. What can I say? When I was a kid, the encyclopedia was my best friend.

Anyway, here are some brine shrimp that aren't hibernating. And let me tell you, it's almost killing my little OCD head that I just freestyled them and made them completely anatomically inaccurate. Please, please, please don't count the appendages, anyone.

No, seriously.

No, really.

I think I need to get out more.

Object of Attention in pen & ink and soluble graphite

2011-09-17T11:37:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is mesmerising. And this? A fairly common scene around this house.

Our cat Max isn't so much for cat toys. Oh, he'll play with them for short periods of time, but if you really want to make him happy you'll give him a bug instead.

Not that I ever have to do that. He's good enough at finding them on his own, thank you very much.

Max is one of those cats who'll watch you absolutely intently if you're doing something interesting. Insects, though, are on a totally different level for him. If he's got an insect in his sight you absolutely can't distract him. He'll watch insects for hours. If they're moving it's like following the ball at a tennis match for him. And if they don't move? He keeps staring until they do.

He gets completely absorbed.

And when he finally gets bored? Well, he's a cat, after all. The insect's likely to become a snack once the game's over. I'm not sure how much luck he'd have with today's Ground Beetle, though. They're probably a bit on the crunchy side. And, depending on the species, possibly noxious...

Can't help but think that it'd serve him right, in that case.

When I was trying to decide what to doodle for mesmerising I did a couple of quick scribbles of Max in bug-watching mode. In the end I decided that I was more in the mood to draw an insect than draw the cat (who's a terrible model at the best of times), but here's what it might have looked like from more of the human's point of view instead.

As usual, the scanner's lost a bit of the wash. There's enough in both of these still there to give the idea, though.

Tulip History in mixed media

2011-09-10T15:50:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is boundaries. When it comes to art, I have plenty of boundaries.

The first one, as anyone who's been to this blog before knows, is calling anything I do art. It's doodling. It's a hobby. I can't take it seriously, because if I do it might stop being fun. If I broke through that boundary I might get more accomplished, but as things stand now I'm just not willing to head that direction. Doodles it is, and doodles it'll stay.

There are other boundaries, of course. For me, a huge boundary is my eyesight. I'm terribly myopic, and that's always going to keep me confined to smaller subjects. Concentrating on, for example, a landscape for long enough to send it to my hand -- erm, so to speak -- is a literal headache.

One of the biggest boundaries, though, is lack of training. I'm acutely aware of the fact that I am very self-taught. I had one art course in junior high, and that was it. Science ended up taking all of the spaces that arts would have by the time I hit high school. It didn't bother me too much at the time, or (if I'm going to be honest) for a lot of years after. I doodled a bit here and there and I had enough drawing skill to be able to manage lab sketchwork, but that was about it.

When I very tentatively returned to art in my mid-twenties, I naturally went to the pencil because that was what I'd learned in that one art course. We did sketching and a little bit of sculpture, and... you know what? I can't even remember what else now. The point is that I knew my pencil basics, so pencil it was. I spent a number of years doing little else but smudging away. Happily smudging away. I like smudging. It brings out my not-so-inner five-year-old.

I'm not sure why I even decided to pick up a pen for the first time (in an art context, at least), but it scared the hell out of me at first. I didn't know what to do with it, and if whatever I did was wrong it was going to be there forever. It took me a long time to relax with a pen, and it took me even longer to warm to it. I did warm to it, though, and now I really enjoy playing with pens.

Now if that could only happen with painting.

Sigh. Painting. I'm never going to be a painter, so it's a good thing that it's never been a huge dream of mine. I dabble here and there in watercolours and very occasionally have some success, but I just don't seem to have the patience for it. That, plus the fact that I mostly don't have a clue what I'm doing will probably always keep colour work on the periphery of my art world. I'm ok with that, obviously, or I'd be working harder to get the hang of it. After all, the pen thing worked out eventually.

Don't even ask about my success rate with acrylics...

Anyway. Think of today's doodle as a brief history of me and art. And keep in mind that my scanner has, as usual, ignored any subtlety that might have accidentally made its way into the painted portion. It looks a fair bit different in person.

One other thing that kind of ties in with the post title: my source material was some old photos of different kinds of tulips that used to grow in my father's yard. We don't have them anymore; we have deer instead. Deer + tulips = tulips are history.

Poplar Leaf Gall in pen and ink

2011-09-03T15:36:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is mysterious. I know that I almost always start by saying "this is a quick doodle of..." or something like that, but this time it really was a quick doodle since I was in the middle of doing something for work and realised that it might do for mysterious.

As I've mentioned more than a few times, I work at a nature centre that sits at the entrance to a sanctuary. Every year, the balsam poplar trees in the sanctuary get leaf galls something like the one I've drawn here, and every year the kids ask about them.

And every year?

I get stuck once I get past "they're made by insects." I mean, I know why the insects make them and I can always lead the conversation to protection from predators and metamorphosis and things like that, but if someone ever wants to know specifically what kind of insect is living in the gall, I'm stumped.

I suppose a person could always cut open a gall and see what she finds, but somehow it doesn't seem like it would help the message of the importance of all life to a system to randomly decide that this particular creature's life should be sacrificed for curiosity's sake.

I should say here that no, I'm not that much of an extremist when it comes to protecting nature. I swat mosquitoes like everyone else. I'm just saying that it's not a great image for the kids to cut open a gall and find two halves of a larva...

Anyway. I had a bit of time today so I decided to bring in a leaf ( a bit worse the wear already, but autumn comes pretty early here) and see if I could make any headway into this mystery.

I learned something.

I learned that it's massively difficult to read scientific papers about agricultural and horticultural pests when you trained as a mammalogist and not an entomologist.

I also learned that our mystery gall is probably caused by (drumroll please...) an aphid. What used to be called a gall louse. And that there would be tons of them (well, not literally) living in this one single gall.

For the complete nerds among you, it may be one of the Pemphigus aphids. The actual species? Well, that'll have to remain mysterious. There's no way in heck I'm taking a crash course in aphid morphology just to find a species name. I've been triumphant about one mystery today, and I think that'll do me.

Meadowhawk in conte crayon

2011-08-22T17:09:00.003-06:00

This is my second go at Illustration Friday's prompt of influence. Ordinarily I only do one, and on the rare occasions where I do more than one I tend to just add it to my original post. I have a bit to say about this one that doesn't fit with the other, though, so second post. I'll cross-link them at the end for anyone who's interested in the other one.

This sketch is based on a photo of me holding a meadowhawk, which is a type (well, a group) of dragonfly. A few years ago we had a real population explosion of these little guys, and one afternoon after I'd taken way too many pictures of the females with their abdomens up in the air -- I assume it's a mating posture, but don't take my word for that one -- I decided to see if I could pick one up for a closer look. They're pretty mellow for dragonflies, meadowhawks. A few tries later, and this was the result.

Only someone who knew me as a child would understand just how odd that last paragraph was. I was really insect-phobic as a kid, and the mere thought of having to touch an insect would have kept me inside for days. To pick one up by choice? Weird, Dee. Really, really weird.

But oddly symbolic, that dragonfly.

Years ago, one of the many campground programs I went to with my family was about dragonflies. I don't remember all of the details at this point, but I remember that the park interpreter said some things that had me thinking about dragonflies in a different way. The simple fact that they could be interesting was new to me, to be honest. I was always interested in plants and furry animals (I've since trained as a mammalogist, despite what all the flowers you'll find on this blog may lead you to believe), but the thought that insects were worth being anything but squicked about? Very much a new idea.

I'd like to be able to tell you that the interpreter's take on dragonflies cured me of entomophobia, but that would be a complete lie. It took years. The idea that insects could be looked at differently did open my eyes somewhat, though, as did most of those evening campground shows we went to. I know now after being in the business for nearly two decades that most of those interpreters would have been summer students trying to make the best of limited resources so that they could prove their worth to their bosses through attendance (and, depending on the park, donations), but to a kid who didn't know any of that stuff those programs were a huge influence. They taught me new things, they gave me new topics to be interested in, and the program schedule was always the second thing I looked for when we arrived at a new campground.

The first being the bathrooms, of course. A kid has to have priorities.

I've no doubt that those programs also subtly influenced my choice of studies in university, and probably my choice of career. The probably is only because I sort of fell into this accidentally to begin with. The fact that I've stayed with it so long? Yeah, I'm sure I owe that at least partly to those summer students trying desperately to entertain rambunctious kids so that their parents didn't have to.

And dragonfly lady, whoever you might have been? My meadowhawk-bearing hand goes out to you.

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My other IF post for this week can be found here.

Wood Lily in pen and ink

2011-08-21T12:38:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is influence, and this is an admittedly quick lunch-break doodle in my small moleskine of a Western Wood Lily. It's based on a photo I took in the Sanctuary a few years ago, and I remember being surprised to see it there both because they aren't that common in this particular area and because it always amazes me just how well a bright orange flower can hide itself if it puts its mind to it.

So how does this relate to influence? Well, I'm influenced by organic forms in my drawing (gee. I bet no one's noticed that) and I find myself drawing members of the lily family pretty frequently because I'm influenced by the way their initially simple-appearing shapes and lines have so much subtle variation when you start to look a little closer. Plus, I like the apparent symmetry.

Influence is a thought-provoking word, and I'm hoping to get time to do a different version of it in the next day or two. Just in case I don't, though, I thought I should post this so that I don't miss two weeks in a row.

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My other entry for this week's IF is here now.

Cool set of images

2011-08-14T10:29:00.000-06:00

Science as art.

Not sure if I'll get anything done for IF this week. Have to admit, the prompt this time isn't doing much positive for me. Ah well, I'll post when and if I have something.

Pumpkin Flower in ink

2011-08-08T12:36:00.002-06:00

Well, sort of in ink. Inktense pencil, largely, with pen & ink outline and pencil crayon. Why the pencil crayon? No idea, really.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is imperfect. Hmm. I've just realised that it sounds like there's something wrong with the prompt...

Anyway, imperfect. In botany, an imperfect flower is one that doesn't have both male and female parts. Stamens and pistils, if you prefer. It's a way to try to avoid self-pollination, for the most part. Sometimes you find male flowers on one plant and female flowers on another (a dioecious plant), but sometimes both flowers are found on the same plant. That's a monoecious plant, and that's the way it is with pumpkins.

When I started thinking about imperfect flowers, pumpkins came to mind because we grew them on occasion when I was a kid. I don't anymore, though. I'm not sure they'd be terribly happy in my balcony planters. Um, anyway. When I was growing up I'd occasionally enter the children's gardening section of the county fair, and one year we decided to try the pumpkin competition. The problem was that the fair was at a perfect time for flowers, but way too early for pumpkins to have any chance at developing a worthwhile size. I don't know why my mother and I decided to give it a try anyway, but we did.

To have any hope of having a showable pumpkin a person couldn't leave it to nature to figure out how to get the pollen from the male flowers to the female ones, and as a result I had my first real experience at manipulating a plant. I remember looking at the flowers every day to find one that had the tell-tale swelling at the base that said it was a female (and getting impatient because there seemed to be sooo many more male flowers out there). If I was lucky enough to find one, then it was time to pick a likely looking male flower, strip off its petals, and "introduce" it to the female.

I think I ended up with three whole growing fruits, only one of which even looked faintly like a pumpkin by the time of the fair. If I remember right, it was maybe twenty centimetres in diameter -- that might be generous -- and still green, but it was well-formed enough to give it a shot.

A long shot, I was pretty sure.

I was pretty shocked to get the first place ribbon, but I was a little more shocked to see that none of the other entries were bigger than a tennis ball. It seems that I was the only one whose parents had told her that pumpkin flowers sometimes need a little help getting to know each other.

It was an interesting experience, but the next year I went back to the flower competition. It was easier than waiting for a pumpkin to get around to making a female flower.

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As usual, my cheap scanner's failed me a bit on the colours, and since I don't have proper editing software I can't do too much about fixing them. Imagine much more orange, a bit less yellow, and a whole lot less red. In fact, when I was fiddling around trying to fix things I kind of decided that I liked the tinted version you see to the left, but what the heck. I'll stick with the top one, I guess.

And as far as imperfect goes, the weirdness in the background is because I decided I didn't like my wonky wash and scribbled over it with a moistened Inktense pencil. It's... it'll do, I suppose. A little imperfection never hurts anyone. A lot? Well, that's pretty much what you find on this blog.

I'm ok with that.

High Bush-Cranberry leaf in pen and ink

2011-07-31T13:35:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is obsession.

It doesn't take a very long browse of this blog's album to discover one of my brain's life-long obsessions. Count the number of leaves, trees, and branching patterns in general, and you just have to figure that something's going on there.

I like patterns. A lot. I like symmetries, I like branching, I like regularity... but I absolutely love the way nature takes those basics and then messes with them juuust a little to keep me interested.

It's all about me, of course.

Um, yeah. Anyway. Superficially speaking, there's a lot of regularity and symmetry in nature. That's only superficially, though. If you look a little closer you find that what seems very basic and repetitive is actually full of complex variations. Sometimes it's irregularity in growth, like the veins on a leaf, but sometimes the symmetry was never there to begin with. Look at us, for example. On the outside? Well, I'm sure most of us did the symmetry exercise in school (I... think most of us did. I'm getting on a bit now. Maybe they don't do the symmetry stuff anymore) where you're given half of a picture and have to use a mirror to make it into a full picture. Often the half-picture is of a person, and the resulting reflected picture looks very familiar in its symmetry. It's what we think humans look like.

But.

Look inside. Check out an anatomy textbook. Humans (and most other animals. Zoologist here, remember? I saw the insides of a lot of animals back in the day. But that's a whole 'nother topic) have almost nothing to do with symmetry once you get past the superficial.

That's unexpected.

And that's interesting.

And that's the kind of unexpected and interesting that keeps my OCD brain from getting bored. And believe me, it obsesses me enough that if I'd had more time on my break I would have gladly drawn out all the minute veins in today's leaf rather than just the major ones.

Is that weird?

Ah well. Can't say it would surprise me if it was. It still makes me happy, though, and that's what counts in my brain.

Saskatoon in graphite

2011-07-24T12:41:00.002-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is perennial. I'm a little short on time right now, so here's a fifteen-minute sketch of saskatoon, a perennial plant (well, it's a bush, so by definition it's going to be perennial...) that bears fruits that are perennial favourites around here for preserves, syrups, and pie-making. Not quite ripe yet, but when they are I'll be raiding the shrub outside my office window for at least a few handfuls.

If I get around to it I'll try to post something a bit more substantial for the word later.

Baton in acrylic with resist

2011-07-16T09:46:00.003-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is gesture. I grew up singing in choirs and playing in the school band (oboe and tuned percussion, of all things), and I also had my own childrens' choir for about ten years, so I guess that the ultimate in gestures for me is conducting.

I've not actually had much experience with the baton since most choral conducting is done with the bare hand, but I've done baton a little. If I'm to be honest, it felt a lot more regimented and a lot less instinctual than conducting for a choir, but it definitely makes you think more about the importance of each movement.

Since I did most of my choral conducting for kids, it was really more of a full-body thing than conducting with a baton usually is. Kids respond to your energy as well as your beat, so if you want them to truly follow you you'd better be planning to be doing a lot more than just waving your arms around. Conducting a full concert can be pretty exhausting. And since you're generally mouthing the words right along with them, it can also make you just as dry as if you'd sung the whole thing too.

It's tiring, all right, but it can also be pretty exciting to see -- and feel -- a group of singers reacting well as one body. Do I miss it? Yeah, sometimes. Not enough to do anything about it, true, but there are times when I wish I could just step into it for a while again. It was a big part of my life, and every now and then it feels weird to realise how long it's been since I led a rehearsal.

Um...

Yeah. Rehearsals.

Maybe I don't miss rehearsals all that much...

Anyway. Today's doodle is mostly just a result of me having an idea an then deciding I wasn't in the mood to go realistic with it. Oil pastel for resist, painted over with acrylic, and then rubbed down just after the paint stopped being tacky but was still flexible.

Iris in pen and ink

2011-07-11T16:23:00.000-06:00

This is some variety or other of Siberian Iris, drawn from a photo. Sad, that, since there are still a couple of them blooming in the garden. It's been absolutely pouring today, though, so photo it was.

I love irises, but this is my first attempt at an iris doodle. Not too bad, I figure, but now that I've tackled one I'm looking forward to getting a bit more practice at it. Maybe even in colour...

Shocking thought, that: a flower in colour. I know. Who'd have even thought it was possible?

Stay in pen and ink

2011-07-09T09:23:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is stay.

Sit.

Stay.

Good boy...

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Because I never got around to posting anything for last week's prompt of remedy, here's a bonus doodle:

Click on the picture if you want to decipher the left-hander writing.

Would I vouch for the remedy? Personally, no. Also, I just have no desire to stick garlic in my ear at this particular time.

I can't help but think that's only reasonable.

'Scuse the added scuzziness from the scanner here at work. It obviously needs a cleaning.

Stork's Bill in pen and ink

2011-06-18T19:44:00.000-06:00

Quick specimen sketch tonight, since I have a few more things I have to get to yet...

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is launch. This flower and seed belong to a plant called Stork's Bill or Filaree (Erodium cicutarium), which is native to the Mediterranean, I believe. Here in North America it's considered a weed, and in some places an invasive one. Once you've got it in growing conditions it likes, it can be hard to keep it from spreading.

That's because it has a sneaky way of planting its own seeds.

The coiled awn you see on the seed acts like a spring, and when the seed is ripe it can be launched up to a half-metre away from the parent plant. But that's not the end of things. Humidity acts on the awn, causing it to coil and uncoil, which in turn causes the seed to drill itself into the ground.

Self-planting. Pretty darned cool.

For a pretty darned cool time-lapse photo of the awl's coiling action, scroll down a bit on this page. And for anyone in Canada who hasn't ever listened to Quirks and Quarks, the radio show the report on the page was taken from... Seriously? You've missed some good popular science then, folks.

African Violet in acrylic

2011-06-18T11:12:00.000-06:00

Hey, it's almost even a painting.

Ok, so it is a painting.

I still think I have the brush skills of a five-year-old, but I can now officially say that I've completed two canvasses in my lifetime.

What an achievement...

Part of my problem with painting (besides the fact that I don't know how to paint) is that I don't have much patience when it comes to letting layers dry. When a person doodles (or this person, at least) it means no more than an hour's worth of deciding what to do. Paint? Sheesh. That takes comparatively forever.

That's hard on those of us who don't have attention spans, you know.

Sorry. What was I saying?

The flash on my point-and-shoot got rid of a bit of the detail, but this photo is still enough to give the gist, I suppose.

Apple Blossom and Buds in pen and ink

2011-06-12T09:44:00.000-06:00

Bit of a line study today. I tried to keep it simple and avoid any hatching or other shading, but I just couldn't avoid adding a few veins to the leaves. Leaf veins are just too much fun. Or at least they are to my branching-obsessed brain.

If you'd told me a few years back that I'd be free-handing anything in pen and ink without pencilling in first (and in a book without tear-out sheets, no less), I would have thought you were insane. I was way too eraser dependent, and way too lacking in confidence to even consider making a line that might possibly not make me happy.

I used to throw out an awful lot of stuff. Nearly finished stuff, too, if I'd mucked it up towards the end. I don't do that so much now, I'm happy to say.

Working in sketchbooks has been good for me, I think. It's making me a little more spontaneous in my lines (although I'd like to get a little more quick and sketchy yet. I'm still too controlled for my liking). More importantly, it's slooowly giving me the ability to look back on doodles that are less than perfect -- sometimes much less than perfect -- without cringing and wanting to toss the entire book in the bin.

Well, mostly. I still have my days. It's a start, anyway.

This was done from a photo I took a couple of weeks ago, partly because I felt like drawing an apple blossom even though they're done for the season, and partly because the mosquitoes are pretty trying at the moment. I may be getting more confident in my lines, but constant swatting certainly wouldn't help them any...

Swept in oil pastel & inktense wash

2011-06-11T16:46:00.003-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is swept. I didn't really want to go the broom route, so I more or less just let my hand do what it wanted to.

It's... kind of windswept?

I dunno. Maybe I'll have a think on this one and come back to the prompt if I come up with something that doesn't look so much like free time at art therapy class.

Not that there's anything wrong with the occasional free scribble...

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Ok (a day later),here's another version:

Just a quickie in the sketchbook while warming up to do something else, but at least it's a bit more "sweepy" than the last one was.

This was done in pen and ink in my small moleskine.

Pasqueflower (Prairie Crocus) in pen and ink

2011-05-29T09:57:00.000-06:00

In 005 Prismacolor Premier, to be more precise. Extra small pen because I felt extra scribbly this morning, I guess.

I grew up knowing these as crocusses, but that gets a person confusing it with the European crocus. Today I try to stick with Prairie Crocus or Pasqueflower, just to be on the safe side. Even safer? Pulsatilla patens, I suppose. Although some sources are still using the synonym Anemone patens... I thought that the scientific names were supposed to make things less confusing?

Anyway. I'm a big fan of this flower, but for a fairly simple form I find it tricky to draw well. And why? Hairs. This is a really hairy plant. Hairy stems, hairy sepals (no petals at all on the flower, despite appearances)... and I've never yet found a way to draw a hairy plant that really makes me happy. Suggest a few hairs? Doesn't give the right idea. Go hair crazy and draw lines all over the place? Way too busy. Today? Well, like I said above I'm apparently in a scribbly mood.

This was done fairly quickly in my small moleskine.

Torpid in pen and ink

2011-05-28T18:28:00.002-06:00

... and Inktense wash. And a bit of soluble graphite in the background, which the scanner has, as usual, not been able to see. Doesn't matter -- it wasn't terribly important.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is asleep. Kind of a tough one for me since I'm more than a bit of an insomniac. My first reaction was very much "asleep? what is that, exactly?"

Anyway. What you have here is me taking advantage of the prompt to do a little bit of preliminary sketching for a project I'll be doing at work. I need some pictures of Richardson's Ground Squirrels (that'd be Urocitellus richardsonii for the nerds among us. You know, like me) during various parts of their life cycle for a school program I'm in the midst of rewriting. Still haven't decided whether I'm going with drawings or photos, but this is a start.

Ground Squirrels are crazy good at hibernating. And yes, while the little biologist voice in the back of my head is saying that torpor isn't the same thing as sleeping, the rest of me is saying that it's close enough for the purpose. At any rate, if you're an adult male Richardson's Ground Squirrel you start your hibernation in mid-June. Yes, seriously. It's mid-July for the adult females. Even the youngsters don't stay out terribly long; the last stragglers are generally down before mid-October.

The hibernation den is lined with grasses, and is completely blocked off before the animal beds down for the winter to help reduce the risk of predation. Imagine that: you wake up after a looong sleep, and the first thing you have to do is dig yourself up to the surface. It's the Great Escape every single spring for these guys.

If you're interested at all in Ground Squirrels and want to know more, the best place I can think of to start is with the University of Lethbridge's Richardson's Ground Squirrel pages. I find them kind of fascinating, but then I've already admitted my nerdity to you folks...

Umbrella in pen and ink

2011-05-22T09:55:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is soaked.

No big explanation for this one. Just a quickie in the sketchbook.

Tulip in watercolour and oil pastel resist

2011-05-15T10:26:00.000-06:00

Not too much to say about this, since I was only just testing a couple of things out.

As a matter of fact, I'm thinking that i probably should have called the post Juuust testing, because that's all it's really about.

Testing what?

Well, the look of different colours with the white resist, for one thing. And the other thing?

That'd be the scanner.

This very quick, slightly crooked, and haphazardly-edited shot is not from the scanner. My scanner, as with many scanners, decidedly does not like watercolour wash. It's serviceable for pen or pencil stuff (although the difference is pretty obvious when I scan things here as opposed to with the higher quality scanner at work), but it's hopeless at anything involving a wash. Watercolour, ink, soluble graphite... a person may as well not even bother. I'm sure that a lot of you know the same tune, there. Just to compare, above is an admittedly slightly dull shot from my autofocus camera. Nothing to write home about, but you can still see the entire flower. Whereas:

Yeah. Scanner. And that's even after I did my best with what limited editing software I have to make something show up.

Ah well, what can you do?

And considering that I don't even own a computer, it's nice that I have access to a scanner at all, really.

I own the scanner, in fact. Don't own a computer, but I do have a scanner. That sounds odd when I type it out...

Ah well. Again. Thus endeth the pointless post.

Wait a minute. Aren't pointless posts supposed to go to my other blog?

Ah well.

Again.

Microhike in conte crayon

2011-05-14T15:04:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is safari. There's more than one way to go on safari, and some of them are a lot cheaper and easier to get to than others.

One of the tools we use in natural history interpretation to get children (or people in general) to look at things on a different scale is called a microhike. Participants are given 1 m pieces of string or yarn and are asked to think of the string as the trail for their hike. The trail can be "set" anywhere, and then the person "walking" the trail gets down on hands and knees to examine every little thing they find along the way. Tiny saplings become redwoods, pebbles are boulders, grasses are jungles... and the wildlife, of course, is mostly insects and spiders.

It's a simple game, but if you introduce it right it's amazing how involved kids can become in the microworld. It's also amazing what you can find if you actually start seeing what's around you.

Personally, I think it would do a lot of adults some good to take a few minutes and look at things in a different way, too.

Oh, and for the record: I have no idea why it's a black paper day today.

Not abandoned, no

2011-05-09T12:43:00.002-06:00

Just having an unhappy wrist at the moment. Don't worry -- it's nothing serious. Back with new doodles soon, I hope.

Decked in pen and ink

2011-04-23T15:28:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is bicycle, which...

I really wasn't in the mood to draw a bicycle.

So.

Yeah. Here we are, then.

Bicycle cards have been around for 126 years, according to the website. Not on the website, but I vaguely remember seeing somewhere else (emphasis on the vaguely, there. Don't take this as gospel), is the reason why they're called bicycle cards. Cards for playing on your bicycle, maybe? Cards for inserting in the spokes so that your bike will sound like it has a motor? Apparently not. If I am remembering right, the name was just the company's way of trying to ride a fad. Back in 1885 the new sport of bicycling was all the rage. They even wrote a song about it. All kinds of things ended up being named to attract the bicyclist (much like companies today will try to attract your attention with the word NATURAL, even if natural isn't always a good thing. Sorry, bit of a pet peeve there), and the cards just happened to outlast most everything else.

Except the bicycle, of course.

Hmmm. Might have been quicker for me to just draw a bicycle than do all of this explaining...

Bottlenose Dolphin in soluble graphite

2011-04-10T11:38:00.000-06:00

A slightly different take on the bottled prompt. Maybe not a bottled dolphin, but definitely a bottlenose.

The scanner lost a fair bit of this one. Picture more shading and a graphite wash in the background instead of mottled streaks and you'd be closer to the actual thing.

Cross-posting this to my entry for this week's Illustration Friday.

Bottled What? in pen and ink

2011-04-09T15:09:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is bottled. And I... don't get bottled water.

Don't worry -- despite the naturalist stuff in my profile, this isn't going to get preachy.

Much.

I just really, honestly, don't understand why people willingly put so much money into what is essentially filtered (sometimes not so much even there) tap water. And when you start looking at how much money and design effort that companies are willing to put into making the bottles look enticingly sleek or curvy or grippy or workout-y, you realise just how much money is being pulled in from the sale of water.

Water.

Seriously.

For anyone out there whose tap water is honestly so bad that they need to buy bottled water, well, I'm truly sorry to hear that. For anyone else? Consider buying a refillable bottle instead of constantly buying new ones.

And for pity's sake, please PLEASE recycle if you are buying bottled water. The piles of used bottles that end up in landfills make for very depressing pictures when you realise that they didn't ever have to be there at all.

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To see my other idea for the bottled prompt, please have a look at this post.

Duet in pen and ink

2011-04-02T12:26:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is duet, and I think that Western Grebes perform one of the coolest duets you're ever going to see in nature.

The courtship dance for these birds is very elaborate and involves preening, head-bobbing, and gift-giving. The whole thing culminates in a sprint down the lake, wings tucked back and water churned up by the feet. Eventually they both dive under the water. I'll leave you to look up more information for yourselves if you're interested, but you can watch the particular part of the ritual that I've drawn in this video.

Just as a slightly weird aside... I used to teach music, so you'd think I would have chosen a musical subject for a prompt like duet. I'd think so, too. I have no idea why the grebes came to mind first.

Another Iceland Poppy

2011-03-20T16:08:00.000-06:00

This time in Aquatone watercolour pencils. The colour's a bit faked in this photo, but not nearly as much as it would have been if I'd posted the scan instead. Holy Whomever does the scanner hate orange, and me without any editing software worth mentioning.

Ah well, this gives the idea.

Cross-posting to my entry for this week's IF prompt.

Iceland Poppy in pen and ink

2011-03-19T16:57:00.004-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is cultivate. And this (well, not the picture; the type of plant) is one of the first things I ever cultivated.

I grew up calling them Icelandic Poppies, but the internet tells me that the more common name is Iceland Poppies these days. They grow in my father's yard like weeds, but they're very happy weeds for me partly because they provide some of the first colour we get in spring and partly because I can vaguely, very vaguely, remember "helping" my mother plant some when I was very young. If you want the more complete version of the story and are willing to suffer through some indifferent poetry, check here.

I come from a gardening family (on both the maternal and paternal sides), and even today my balcony gets planted up each spring. Not with poppies, but there are plenty of other nostalgic things to make up for their lack. I'm a bit of an old-style flower buff, I guess.

I know that this particular poppy isn't looking terribly poppy-ish, but when I was going through my photos to find some poppy inspiration the shape of this one appealed to me. I'm hoping to get a little more doodling in yet this weekend, and if I get another poppy done (hey... maybe I'll even aim for colour. What a thought. A coloured poppy) I'll post it up later.

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Ok, there's a coloured poppy of sorts here...

Birdish thing in acrylic and oil pastel

2011-03-17T10:14:00.001-06:00

Just trying out some things with resist. Might lead to something; might not.

Oh and the phantom drips are there on purpose, sort of. I had more stuff going on in the background, but I decided it wasn't doing anything for me.

Seven-spot Ladybird in pen and ink...

2011-03-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

...and Inktense wash, which partly got lost in the scanner. There's enough left to give the idea, though.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is warning, and nerd naturalist here went with warning colours. Red or red/orange insects like ladybird beetles are sending a warning signal to birds that it's not the best idea to eat them. Some red insects don't taste good (not that most birds would care, since taste isn't their most important sense), while others, like Monarch butterflies, can be downright poisonous. A bird may eat one red insect, but isn't likely to eat another one after it gets sick.

Kind of sucks for the insect that was sacrificed to teach the bird a lesson, I guess, but it's a good survival strategy for the rest of the species.

Crow Swarm in watercolour pencil

2011-02-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. Maybe I should change that post title. Sounds way too much like snow storm.

Ah well.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is swarm, and this is... well, I suppose it's technically more of a murder than a swarm. I really think that conference would be a better collective noun for crows anyway, since they always seem to have some sort of agenda.

I was going to do a ladybird swarm for the prompt like those we sometimes have in late summer here, but I guess I just wasn't feeling the bugginess today.

Strata in watercolour pencil

2011-02-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is layer. Nerd that I am, my mind went to the fact that at work (when I'm teaching forest studies or basic geology) I'll often have to remind the students that stratum is just the word scientists use for layer.

When I did my field botany in university, I found out that the old saw can't see the forest for the trees has more than a bit of truth. If all you notice is the trees when you're studying a forest, then you're not going to get very far. Amongst many other things, it's important to study the layers. Each forest has several strata, and each stratum affects what happens in the stratum beneath it. Each layer blocks out some of the light and some of the moisture from the next one, but each layer also provides shelter to the next. If one of the layers suddenly goes missing (say, because of clear-cutting or a massive wind storm), the remaining can't function the way they've evolved to. The forest inevitably changes.

Because of the relatively open canopy of a deciduous forest there may be a whole whack (scientifically speaking -- ha!) of layers beneath the trees, each with its own distinctive plants and animals. In the more closed canopy of a conifer forest, things can look pretty barren in comparison.

This is the kind of thing that makes my brain happy, but I'm probably boring the snot out of a few people by now so I'll stop here. Next time you're out for a walk in the forest, though, why not see if you can recognise its layers? When you start to think of things horizontally instead of vertically it can certainly give you a different view of the workings.

Begonia in watercolour pencil

2011-02-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

A quick sketch to keep my mostly-nonfunctioning brain in some kind of gear.

Scan's not giving quite the whole thing, but it's not bad. Picture the flower with a slightly more orange tinge, and the leaves a bit less blue. Then we're closer.

Wood Frog in pen and ink

2011-02-05T16:30:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is reverse, and linking it with a frog will take a little bit of explaining.

Frogs, you see (or at least some frogs), can reverse their gender. I'm not sure if it works for Wood Frogs, but studies of African Reed Frogs about twenty years ago found that females could change into males. Gender switching has since been observed in other kinds of frogs as well.

And why switch gender? Well, in the wild it probably has something to do with making sure that the animals can breed. If there are too many females, for instance, chemical signals may tell some of those females to become male.

That's all well and good in an untouched system, of course, but unfortunately some studies are now showing that chemicals created by humans may cause gender reversal as well. That's not great news. Many amphibian populations around the world appear to be in decline already, and having breeding populations affected by our chemical cast-offs would be a very bad thing.

On a happier note, the Wood Frog population seems to be pretty healthy. I just happened to have an old photo of one on hand (the silly thing was sitting in the middle of an asphalt path in August. I'm surprised it wasn't a shrivelled frog rather than a Wood Frog) so I used it as my source. I could tell you lots of cool things about Wood Frogs, but I think I've yammered enough for one post. Check the link at the start of this paragraph if you'd like more Wood Frogginess.

This was done in my moleskine with Prismacolor Premier pens.

General weirdness in acrylic

2011-02-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

Not to be whingy (that's usually saved for my other blog), but I've been a bit under the weather this week. At one point I thought I'd try distracting myself with some weirdness on canvas (weird enough right there. I don't paint anyway, and I hardly ever do anything on canvas), and here you have it.

This? Well, I know why it exists. I even know what it's trying to be.

I don't think I'll tell you.

I will, however, mention that the white squiggly lines are actually highlighting a gessoed texture that you can't see in the photo. Not that it really changes anything, but that's why they're irregular.

As is the brain of the doodler, at the moment. At least this gave me something to do in between bouts of curling up under the blankets. Maybe next time I'll even aim for something that looks a little more like a real painting...

Scan-killed

2011-01-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

Yep, the scanner killed this one, and I don't have the software to correct it. Ah well, just know that the greens were green (and shaded, even) and the flower wasn't just an outline. I'll probably end up deleting this, but here it is for now.

Housework

2011-01-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is dusty. And this?

Well, apparently the little modelling clay men are of the opinion that my old bedroom/studio at my father's place has been more than a little neglected lately. They're trying to do their best to keep up with things, but even the smallest duster in the house is a bit of a challenge for these guys.

Oh, and in case anyone's interested, I don't actually play the ukulele. It was a cheap souvenir from Hawaii years ago.

I don't play the sad iron either. It's just acting as a bookend of sorts.

I do, however, know a few Christmas carols...

And if anyone was concerned that the modelling clay men shouldn't have been doing all of that heavy lifting alone, I have it on good authority that they had some supervision.

I'm not sure how qualified Max is to be on the job site, but he does his best.

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On a more serious note, I'll try to get something drawn for the prompt later in the week if I have time.

And yes, I did do some dusting after I took the picture. Things were looking like a pretty bad case of this-would-horrify-your-mother in there for sure, so even I couldn't ignore it any longer. Gee... thanks for the prompt, IF.

Great Blue Heron in watercolour pencil

2011-01-20T14:54:00.001-07:00

This one probably needs to be redone, but here's how it stands at the moment.

Same series as this one, yes. And this is the last of them. For now, at least.

Giant Water Bug in watercolour pencil

2011-01-19T14:45:00.001-07:00

More poster work. Details here. And yes, I'm scheduling these posts. No point in having multiple posts in one day for a blog that's lucky to get one post a week, I figure.

Yellow Lady's Slipper in watercolour pencil

2011-01-18T14:41:00.001-07:00

More poster work. See the salamander post for details...

Chicken Feet in pen and ink

2011-01-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is chicken. And this is...

I dunno.

Some kind of chicken stampede, maybe?

They might have seen a fox, I guess. Or maybe they were running away from the Pirate Chicken. You know, the one with the peg leg...

Um. Yeah. That's all I've got this week, I'm afraid.

Tiger Salamander in watercolour pencil

2011-01-17T14:31:00.001-07:00

It's the return of the salamander, yes.

This and the pictures I'll post after were all done for posters at work. They'll be lightened and basically used as background images/watermarks, so I haven't put a whole bunch of detail into them.

The pencils I used are Derwent Inktense, which I'm still getting used to. The ink wash effect is pretty cool, I think. And once I get it thoroughly into my head that I can't move the pigment around once it's dried, I expect that I'll be having a lot of fun with my new toy.

I could have sworn...

2011-01-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

That there was a salamander here a little while ago.

There was. I deleted it. I have a more finished version now, but I forgot to bring it in with me. I'll repost it when I get the chance to scan it.

You know, in case you were concerned or anything.

Weird things I do sometimes

2011-01-09T15:50:00.002-07:00

Sorry, but I couldn't resist stealing the post title from the title of today's post on my other blog. I was talking about weird things I do sometimes (bet you got that without my mentioning it, though), and sketching my sketchbook seemed to fit right in.

Yep, sketching my sketchbook. Not sketching in my sketchbook. This is really a quick sketch of my sketchbook.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is déjà vu,and rather than take the route of posting something I'd already posted before I thought I'd try posting a different version of something I'd posted before.

The original (of which this is an extremely loose interpretation, really. I guess I'm not in the mood for detail work) was a split-open tree done in pen and ink. Fine pen. Whose work has just bashed to death in soft pencil...

Ah well. The original prompt was cracked, if I remember right, and it was from when I'd only been doing IF for a few weeks. I'm surprised I've kept at it this long, actually. That's not usually like me. I guess that something about the whole idea just hit a nerve or something.

It just occurred to me that I could have posted any sort of branching pattern for the current prompt. They come back over and over again enough in my life that it would be weird if they didn't occasionally give me a sense of déjà vu.

Doubly appropriate then, I suppose.

Tulip in watercolour pencil

2010-12-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Just a quicky, this. Testing out a couple of things.

Oh, and since it will likely be the last post on this blog before the new year: have a happy whatever your plans are.

Winter Tree in pen and ink

2010-12-25T18:57:00.003-07:00

A five minute sketch after Christmas supper; ostensibly for the Illustration Friday prompt winter, but really more to test the new scanner I found under the tree.

Christmas tree, that is. There's no scanner hiding under the tree in the doodle. Although I probably should have added one, come to think of it. It would have been appropriate, if somewhat nonsensical.

It may seem a bit odd to receive a scanner to attach to someone else's computer (my father's in this case), but now I'll be able to post things when I'm visiting him without resorting to my point-and-shoot camera and its tiny little flash.

In other words, yay for Christmas scanners...

If not for winter. Sooo not a winter person, me. Too bad I live in it so much of the time, I guess.

Crumpled paper in pen and ink

2010-12-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

Not too much to say about this one. I was using it as a line/contour exercise, and I did it with a brush pen to keep myself from worrying about adding shading or anything like that.

Sometimes it's just gotta be about the lines or you get bogged down.

Or at least I do.

Torn in pen and ink

2010-12-18T16:50:00.001-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is mail. I had doodled something completely different for mail and decided part way through posting it that it was way too fussy and I didn't like it.

So I went minimal instead.

Maybe too minimal? Ah well, it's still easily recognisable as an envelope, in any case (and it's given me an urge to spend time drawing crumpled paper, for whatever reason. I'm in the mood for lines today, I guess).

Pitt pen in my small moleskine.

Funnel Web in acrylic

2010-12-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

Yeah. I don't paint.

Not terribly obvious, is it?

And should I explain it? Well, if anyone out there knows what a Grass Spider is, that'll help. And the title might as well, now that I've said spider.

Yeah. I don't paint for a reason.

Hand Axe in pen and ink

2010-12-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is prehistoric, and this is a palaeolithic stone hand axe. It's loosely (very loosely) cribbed from a picture, since I don't happen to have a palaeolithic stone hand axe just lying around. Funny how that works...

Anyway. Hand axes were considered to be fairly basic tools since they didn't need nearly the skill to make that, say, a spear point would need, but they were apparently pretty important multi-use tools. And even if they didn't need fine skills to create, when you consider that every facet is the result of hard, stone-on-stone bashing work, I still think that they're pretty remarkable. And, as I just found out, when you start drawing one the contours can become fairly fascinating. I think maybe I'm going to have to try my hand at an obsidian arrowhead next.

This was done in my moleskine with 01 and 05 sepia Microns.

Ballotin in pen and ink and soluble graphite

2010-11-27T20:55:00.001-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is savour. I wanted to make sure that I did something for IF this week because I've skipped a couple, but savour? Didn't really do it for me. Too specific, maybe. I like prompts that can take me in weird directions, I guess.

Anyway, in keeping with the upcoming season (and to keep from missing yet another week) I decided to go with savouring the anticipation and give you an unopened ballotin. Gotta love the promise of those things. You hope it's going to be chocolate inside and if it is you know it'll be the good stuff. Maybe if you're lucky you'll even recognise the colour of the box (I can practically spot the copper-coloured offerings of my favourite chocolaterie from a mile away. And that's even with me being so nearsighted...) and know what to look forward to. Even if you don't, a shiny ballotin tied with curling ribbon is almost always something to look forward to.

This was a pretty quick sketch and the camera's flash has washed out some of the graphite shading, but I think it still gives the idea.

MORE "ART"!!!!!!!!!!

2010-11-07T10:13:00.001-07:00

Do caps and exclamation points make it any more exciting, the ol' mixed media mess book?

No, I didn't think so.

Don't worry, I'm fully aware of how ridiculous the whole thing is. It's still fun, though.

Wrappers in pen and ink

2010-11-06T15:50:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is afterwards. I think that for a lot of us this is a pretty familiar afterwards left behind by Halloween.

Thought I'd play around with contours a bit today. Sometimes it's just nice to look at the lines and not worry too much about the actual object, I think.

And yes, of course I had to eat the mini candy bars. I needed a subject, after all.

Spent Candle in watercolour

2010-10-30T17:53:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is spent.

For whatever reason, I decided it was time to get the brush out again for this doodle. I guess it's been a while.

For whatever other reason, I don't have a bunch of explanation for this week's effort. That's a first for a while...

Something a bit weird

2010-10-16T20:02:00.000-06:00

I was just rereading a few old posts and couldn't help but notice that I do more talking about work-style topics (work-style being nature, since I'm a zoologist by training and a naturalist by profession) here on my supposed "art blog" than I ever seem to do on my other, general blather blog.

Strange, that.

Not sure it has any particular meaning other than the fact that I like drawing flowers and things like that, but it's still a little odd.

But then, so am I...

Anglerfish in conte crayon

2010-10-16T15:43:00.001-06:00

Hello, and welcome to Dee felt like doodling on black paper today...

Anyway. This week's Illustration Friday prompt is spooky. I know, it's an obvious place to go all Halloween-y. I guess I just wasn't in the mood, so you get an anglerfish instead.

To my mind, Ceratioid anglerfish are some of the spookiest things they find in the deep ocean trenches. Those creepy teeth, and those glow-in-the-dark lures... when you watch footage of deep sea exploration and see one of these gals suddenly appear from the surrounding darkness into the light shone by whatever ROV is taking the pictures? Yeah, that qualifies as spooky as far as I'm concerned.

Couldn't tell you exactly what species this is meant to be because it's a composite of stuff I found around the net. And no doubt it's mostly inaccurate, because I'm definitely not a fish person.

Maybe why I find them spooky?

Poor Beat-up Will in pen and ink

2010-10-09T17:20:00.003-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is transportation, and this is a book.

Not just any book, though.

First of all, let me say that a well-used book is probably the best form of transportation around. Hey, even Emily Dickinson agrees with me there. Will, though, although definitely used, wasn't exactly used well. His spine is so much more than cracked that I think you'd have to call it fractured, his cover is frayed to the cardboard and held together with some very questionable blue tape, and the appendix pages are gradually exiting out the back. Someone at some point taped in some typewritten labels along the edges, but they're disappearing as the tape decays.

I loved this book, though.

My father salvaged it years ago from a box of old books that was left on a trash heap. It was probably someone's college Shakespeare text (in fact, Dad brought home a college literature survey book at the same time) and I don't think it was a terribly expensive edition, but it was my first go at Shakespeare. I've no doubt that I was too young to understand nearly as much as I thought I did of what I was reading, but for whatever reason I was fascinated by the musty old thing's contents.

I spent a lot of hours with this book.

Years later I used some of my Christmas money to buy my very own, pristine Oxford Shakespeare from the University bookstore (and let me tell you, a zoology student gets a few odd looks hauling around a massive volume of Shakespeare) and the old, ratty Shakespeare got left at my parents' house (where it lives to this day), but I guess I'll always have a fondness for it and the very valuable transportation it provided to a kid who was just getting started in a life-long love affair with the classics.

"Art" again

2010-10-06T14:08:00.002-06:00

A.k.a. fun with yarn and gesso, I guess.

Posted mostly just because we haven't had one of these for a while...

Bark Beetle Gallery in graphite

2010-10-02T21:11:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is beneath. Sometimes there are interesting things lurking beneath tree bark that you don't get a chance to see until the tree is dead.

Bark beetle larvae make these galleries directly under the bark as they feed on the inner bark. The main line that follows the grain is the chamber that eggs are laid in, and the radiating lines are larval feeding tunnels.

The galleries look like fine carving and can be very intricate and attractive, but they're not always a good thing. Generally, bark beetles are important for forest renewal as they attack dead or dying trees, but some are disease vectors and spread things like Dutch Elm Disease.

The galleries are still cool, though.

Stereoscope in pen and ink

2010-09-25T10:28:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is old-fashioned. And this? is old-fashioned television. For anyone unfamiliar with stereoscopes, what you do is put a card with a double photo on the rack, slide it to focus, and then look through the lenses to see a 3D image. Here's a bit more info.

This particular stereoscope lives in my apartment and has been in the family for well over a hundred years. It's a little beat up, but that's only because it was well used. Back in the day, I'm told, they were commonly used by courting couples as a way to sit close together without alarming the chaperones.

Um, anyway. I originally meant the doodle to be a lot more detailed, but once I'd done the initial line drawing (slightly skewed perspective and all) I decided to keep it simple.

Incidentally, I'm not sure what it says about me that the scan to the left is what I initially thought of in regards to old-fashioned. If it helps, I did have to look up the recipe...

Red-breasted Nuthatch in pen and ink

2010-09-19T11:08:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is acrobat, and this was a pretty quick doodle mostly just to get me sketching. I've not exactly been in the mood lately, for various reasons.

I always get a kick out of the way that nuthatches work the trees upside-down. It's like gravity doesn't work the same way for them as it does for the rest of us. There's a good reason for the strategy, though -- it lets the birds find insects that the birds who only work up might miss.

Since I didn't have a photo of a nuthatch on hand, I borrowed this one as my source.

"Art". Yes, still with quotes.

2010-09-05T11:22:00.000-06:00

I'll never be able to take this nonsense seriously, you know.

Posting this mostly because I'm getting tired of seeing it on my nerdstick...

Pie in pen and ink

2010-09-04T15:59:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is dessert (which, by the way, I've checked multiple times to make sure isn't desert...). Quick lunchtime doodle in the sketchbook this time because I'm not sure if I'll have time to get anything else done.

Um, for anyone who read this post from last week's prompt: yes, the lack of time thing means that things in general are moving again. Slowly but surely, but at this point I'm not about to argue with any sort of movement.

Anyway. Those curious as to exactly what kind of pie had me doodling can click on the photo. And since the fruit mentioned is sort of a regional thing, anyone interested in more information can find a bit here and here.

Unfortunately not moving...

2010-08-30T16:20:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is immovable. Hey, how appropriate.

I'm stuck.

You might notice if you scroll down that I haven't done the last couple of IF prompts, and that most of August's posts have consisted of weirdness from my mixed media book. There's a reason.

There's something that I need to do, and I'm stuck.

Not uninspired, no. In fact, I know what I want to do, I have more than a few ideas about how to accomplish it, I have the materials now (that was my excuse for a little while, but I can't use it anymore), it's a time-sensitive project, and I'M STUCK.

And getting very, very frustrated with myself. Which, of course, doesn't help a person get unstuck.

Sigh.

It's amazing how immovable a very light piece of drawing equipment can be when it puts its mind to it, you know? Here's hoping that posting this gives me the kick in the backside that I so obviously need.

More "art"!!!

2010-08-17T10:24:00.000-06:00

Apparently I'm not doing an Illustration Friday doodle this week. Weird, because I had an idea immediately and I have the materials sitting beside me right now. As they have been for days...

Ah well, I suppose a person can't help her moods.

In lieu of that, then, here's another page from what's increasingly becoming the world's most pointless sketchbook (it may just have to move over to my more appropriately titled other blog, come to think of it). This was cardstock that was scribbled over with felt pens, sliced into triangles with a guillotine, and then glued down in a randomish spiral. I was going to cover it with something else after that, but I decided I kind of like it this way so this way it stayed.

Which is, I guess, the point.

So it has a point after all? Ok then.

Oh, and the exclamation points in the title? No reason. No reason at all. Pointless points.

Maple Leaf in pen and ink

2010-08-09T17:12:00.000-06:00

Mostly just because I've been a little lazy about sketching this past couple of weeks.

Incidentally... the maple leaf, that well-known Canadian symbol, isn't even found in a fairly large portion of Canada. Oh, they have lots of Sugar Maples in the east, of course, and granted that's where the country started, but around here the closest thing you're going to find is Manitoba Maple, whose leaves are barely recognisable as maple leaves and which is known better as Box Elder by quite a few people anyway. And which isn't even native here but has escaped from boulevard plantings.

Um, anyway. I have absolutely nothing against maple leaves -- I think they're great, really -- but I find it mildly amusing that something I've only seen twice (maybe three times) in my lifetime is what many of you would think about when I say I'm Canadian.

Source picture courtesy of Smudgers, who is my Ontario-based co-conspirator on the other blog.

The gesso is getting out of hand

2010-08-08T11:02:00.000-06:00

Or on hand, or something.

I started out applying it with a brush like a good girl, but more and more I'm finding myself making a big, goopy, textural fingerpainting mess.

Who knew when I started this silly book that my big discovery would be that gesso is fun? Especially when you stop thinking about how it's supposed to be used...

I guess I really am a not-so-secret five-year-old.

And my sketchbook is getting les and less closeable.

Caged in... stuff, I guess

2010-08-07T09:47:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is caged. Apparently the little modelling clay men have fallen afoul of the play-doh blobs for some reason...

IF's site appears to be a bit gibbled right now, so I haven't been able to upload this yet. I'll try to remember to do it later.

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Edited to say: ok, it's posted now. Being posted doesn't make it any less weird, of course...

And another page of "art"

2010-08-03T12:31:00.001-06:00

Newspaper headlines and some oil pastel resist, this time.

And it's very blue...

Fake garden in pen and ink

2010-08-02T15:48:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is artificial, and I haven't yet managed to get around to what I wanted to do for it because I was busy with something else. The something else may or may not get posted here, depending on what happens with it. Anyway, just in case I don't finish the thing I wanted to post for the prompt here's a sketchbook page on the same idea. I'll add to this post later if I have another version.

I've had an artificial garden of houseplants from the first day I lived on my own. Literally from the first day -- I made sure I had a plant in my university dorm room, even. The plant in the doodle is from about a year later, since it was purchased for my first apartment. It's getting old for a plant in a pretty tiny pot.

Some might wonder how this all fits into artificial, but when you think about it it's pretty darned artificial to take a plant from a totally different climate, stick it in a confined space, and train it to scheduled watering and feeding.

It's a form of artificial I'd really miss if it didn't work, though. My small apartment is currently shared with five in-house plants (ten if you count the amaryllises that are outside for the summer) and a whack of things out on the balcony. I guess you could say that I need an artificial garden to feel at home.

And more "art"

2010-07-30T14:29:00.002-06:00

Posted mostly because I'm tired of carrying this scan around on my nerdstick. The newer pages in my --- um, shall I call it a mixed media journal, or just a mucking-around book? -- are getting a little more involved as I get used to making a mess on purpose. I'll try to do some scans of them at some point.

Maybe I'll even take the quotation marks off of the "art" part at some point. That's a fair amount to ask of "some point" though.

Twinflower in graphite

2010-07-25T11:28:00.001-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is double, and this is Twinflower (Linnaea borealis). Twinflower is named after Carolus Linneaus, the father of modern taxonomy. I've always found it kind of interesting that one (well, two, since they always come up in pairs) of the tiniest flowers out there is named after one of the biggest names in science history.

Today's doodle is the second version I did for the prompt. Got the idea last night and decided to use a piece of paper that I'd been experimenting with gesso textures on to do a quick watercolour pencil sketch of a twinflower plant. It was pretty loose and abstractish, really. Being the nerd biologist that I am, it didn't have enough plant ID features to make me happy, so this morning at work I did a quick graphite sketch that's more recognisably twinflower. Not perfect, by any means, but I'm happier.

The original version? Um... here:

Yeah. Not quite what the naturalist had in mind.

Ah well, it's all practice.

And excuse the scanner artifact. I'm not sure what's up with our machine here at work at the moment.

And even more "art"

2010-07-20T11:53:00.000-06:00

Apparently I really wanted to cover up whatever I wrote underneath this one. It's been a while now; can't quite remember the reason.

Ah well. At least it's... scribble-y? Or something.

And it's got shiny bits. That's always important.

Fun Pack in pen and watercolour pencil

2010-07-19T12:07:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is breakfast. I'm a little late this week because to be honest I'm not a huge breakfast person. I eat it because I know I should, but I can't say I wake up looking forward to it.

I'm also not a huge cereal person (with the exception of a certain fondness for Count Chocula as a child...), but then I remembered a time when I really considered cereal a treat.

When we went camping every summer my mother used to buy us those Fun Pack cereals. Remember them? You sawed open the perforations on the side to turn the tiny box into a tiny bowl? Which inevitably leaked milk at the corner, of course, but as a kid you never really cared about things like that. Anyway, here's a typical camping breakfast, complete with spoon that bends too easily (and why do I remember them? Because I'm still using the darned things on a daily basis. I inherited them when I went to college, and I've never gotten around to replacing them) and plastic tumbler of apple juice because I didn't like orange juice much.

Didn't like cereal, didn't like orange juice; yeah, I was a weird kid.

Which is probably why I'm a weird adult. It tends to work that way.

And more cat help...

2010-07-11T19:57:00.000-06:00

I was going to just take a quick photo of the sketchbook I referenced here so that I could link to it, but apparently Max wasn't done "helping" yet.

He's very subtle, isn't he?

Oh yeah.

Sketchbook in graphite

2010-07-11T17:39:00.005-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is diary. I don't keep a diary. I'd bore myself stiff. In fact, I'd probably have done better if the word was dairy.

Anyway, this is a quick sketch of the small red moleskine that lives in my purse since that's as close to diary as my life gets. There's a slight bit of soluble graphite wash mostly just because I was in the mood for a mess. Oh, and there's guest cat feet because Max decided it was time to stop taking pictures and pay attention to him instead.

I had to leave it in. It was too funny. And, I think, the most interesting thing about the picture...

Ah well. For a link to a photo of the actual journal, check here.

Seven With One Blow in pen and ink

2010-07-06T09:21:00.000-06:00

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is giant. And this? Well, rather than explain it I'll just direct anyone who hasn't read The Brave Little Tailor to the website here. That'll save me some typing.

More "art"

2010-06-28T12:29:00.000-06:00

Sorry. Just can't seem to bring myself to leave off the quotation marks.

I'm not sure if I'll get around to Illustration Friday this week, so here's another page from the Book of Random Art Supplies. It's colourful, at least, even if it really makes no sense.

Still having trouble with the fact that it's ok to make no sense with this kind of thing...