Maps in Tritones

Yes, I still doodle. I just don't post it often.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is map. A good one for the last week of the year, actually. Where have you been, where are you headed... a person could get really philosophical.

I literally just doodled.

Sometimes my brain just likes to make curved lines. Call it a mind map in a way, although it's not usually what's meant by the term. Curved, branching lines have made my brain happy for a long time. These ones were done on plain old manila with Tritone pencils (2 per page), which is why there are colour variations. They were also done in a darkened room while half-watching television, so the only really conscious thing about them was to try to fill the white (well, yellow) space.

Sorry for the dodgy scans, but the paper was just a little too big for the scanner bed, and cropping would have just cut things off even more. Ah well, call it one last bit of "excuse my mess" for the last day of the year.

Flame in pen & ink, metallic pencil, watercolour pencil, and tritone

Hard to believe that such a simple doodle took that many media... and after all of that the scanner played its usual games with the colours anyway. Ah well.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is hot, which somehow prompted both a drawing AND my first poem in ages, such as it is.

Hey, I'm rusty. What can I say?

Snowshoe art

Just quickly because I have work to do, but here's proof that art is still happening, even if it doesn't make it to the blog.

Well, doodles are still happening, anyway.

Silliness

I'm not doing Illustration Friday this week (the prompt is Prince: I know what most people have posted, and I don't do portraits. I'm also not in the mood to put a twist on it).

In lieu of that, here's a fairly bad cat doodle (done in multicoloured pencil, no less) that has been completely warped over by digital filters.





Sometimes it fun to just be silly instead of worrying about getting results. I need to remind myself of that too frequently.

Dragon in conte crayons

This week's Illustration Friday was dragon. This was from a number of years ago when we had an explosion of meadow hawks. They don't care where they sit when they're posturing. There you go. My hand dragon.

Disco duck?

I was drawing a picture of a Hooded Merganser. Then I decided that I wanted to play instead, so I got out one of my multicoloured pencils (this time, the red-blue-yellow one). So instead of a largely black and white duck, mine's... special, I guess.

I know that I'm a five-year-old when it comes to these things, but I really do like the surprise of self-mixing colours. I can't say that I'd ever do anything serious with "magic" pencils, but they're sure fun to mess around with.

On the Half-skull in "Magic" pencil

This week's Illustration Friday  prompt is orbit. My take is orbit as in eye socket, obviously.

The skull is very loosely based on an ancient Roman skull excavated in London. There's a story about it an other artifacts here, and it's worth a read.

Island in Koh-I-Noor "Magic" pencil

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is tropical.

The scanner didn't like this one at all and I had to do a lot of playing to get the colour to show, so sorry if it looks completely digital now. It's not. It's a Koh-I-Noor Magic pencil. Here's the link.

Yes, I got some Magic pencils because at heart I'm still a five-year-old who gets a bit of a thrill at the random colour mix you get from drawing with a multicolour leaded pencil. The Original pencil, for example, is red, blue, and yellow, so you get... almost anything,really. This particular pencil is the one that they call Tropical.

I thought it was appropriate.

It's not just a scribble

Last week's Illustration Friday prompt was soar, and since they haven't gotten around to putting up a new one yet I suppose I'll go over there and post my version after all.

There's a reason behind this.

There's a reason why it's uneven. There's a reason why there are blank patches.

You've probably guessed by now that I'm going to let you make up your own mind.

I realise that my current abstract-ness isn't to the taste of a lot of you, but it's doing something for me and that's pretty important in the end. Realism will come back. Eventually. It always does. In the meantime, just enjoy the colours if that's all you're seeing, because that's all right too.

Punch in Art Stix

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is punch, and this... is scribbly. Scribbly kind of day, really. And Art Stix are pretty good for that kind of mood.

I'll be honest; I've never seen a Punch and Judy show except for little snippets on television. I have a feeling that I wouldn't have liked them as a child. I was too neurotic to cheer on the random "killing" of hand puppets, I'm afraid. Maybe you have to be there in the moment? Ah well, at least this idea prevented me from scribbling a bowl instead.

Fisher in Derwent Drawing pencils and metallic pen

This week;s Illustration Friday prompt is star. I went with stars, plural, because I'm a bit of a sky picture person.

Most of us in English-speaking North America and Europe know this constellation as The Big Dipper, The Plough, The Wain, or some variation. It's not a constellation at all, though. The Big Dipper is an asterism; a new picture made from a chunk of the bigger, actual constellation.

Scientifically, a constellation is a section of the night sky and all of the stars it contains. For most of us, though, when we think constellation we think of the imaginary picture our brains form by playing connect-the-dots with the stars in that part of the sky. Either way, this constellation is known as Ursa Major, the Big (or Great) Bear. The Graeco-Roman myth attached to it has to do with Callisto (or Callistro, sometimes), a nymph who was changed into a bear by Artemis (or sometimes Hera. Or sometimes Zeus. Mythology has a lot of sometimeses) for abandoning her vow of chastity and having a son named Arcas (sometimes Arctos...) with Zeus. There are many versions of what happened next. You can find my retelling of one of them on my other blog, here. Keep in mind that it's only one sometimes of many, however.

You'll notice that some versions explain the long tail of that bear by having it hauled up to the sky using the tail as a handle. Many cultures have seen Ursa Major as an animal (if you look up the constellation without my superimposed drawing, it looks like one), but not all of them see a bear. The Anishinaabe see a Fisher, a member of the weasel (mustelid) family. They have a wonderful story of how Fisher brought spring to the earth, and rather than embarrass myself by telling a story that really doesn't belong to me -- although I've done it before and likely will again -- I'd encourage everyone to read the story of How Fisher Visted Skyland.

Personally, I think it's important to look at the sky through different eyes, sometimes.

Mermaid in ArtStix

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is mermaid. And this weird thing is literally just a doodle in front of the television because I wasn't feeling very detail-y.

The one thing I will say is that there's a reason she's scribbled on. Well, actually scribbled both under and on, but you can't tell that from a scan. The reason? She doesn't exist, of course.



Well, it made sense to me last night...

Heart in Derwent drawing pencils

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is heart.

Well, I couldn't draw a Valentine and all, being me.

This is probably completely inaccurate and I suppose I've given Imaginary Model a serious heart condition, but gimme a break. It's been a long time since my lab drawing days and I didn't exactly have a live model to work with. Er, dead model. You know what I mean. Besides, I worked with dead animals, not dead people.

Not that it should make a difference, but you know where I'm going with this.

Anyway, this was just a half hour or so in one of my Moleskine cahiers, so not terribly bad for what it is. And I've really got to stop being so lazy about doodling. I see my last blog post was... June? Seriously?

Yeah, I've got to get back to some more regular art stuff.

ETA: if anyone doesn't follow my other blog and for some reason wants to follow me, I'm on twitter @deeolworld.

Tent Trailer in Art Stix

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is vacation. This scribble is meant to be the tent trailer we grew up camping in every summer. I loved that thing, although I'm sure my parents had a love/hate relationship with it. On the one hand, lots of space but reasonably cost-effective to tow. On the other hand, set-up. Especially in the rain...

Oh, but I loved the rain in the tent trailer too. Lying in one of the wings, listening to the rhythms the drops made, being careful not to touch the canvas sides so that the bedding didn't get soaked; it's honestly one of my happiest childhood memories. To this day if I hear rain on an awning or something like that, I'm right back there listening in the trailer. And, frankly, feeling what it was like to be the one taken care of and not the one worrying about whether we'd have any leaks.

On a side note, this kind of camping seems almost dinosaur-like for a lot of people, and that's sad. Camping shouldn't be complaining if there's no showers and wondering if the campground has wifi. If you're going to do things that way, why go at all? I just can't imagine that kids today will have the memories of getting dirty, cooking over a fire, looking up unfamiliar plants along trails in guidebooks, and coming home exhausted, smelly, and happy like I do. Will they just remember whining about the lack of cell coverage?

I hope not, but it seems like that's where we're headed.



Sad.

Bladderwort after a fixative accident

This started out as an okay pastel sketch of Common Bladderwort for work, and then... the plastic bottle of fixative literally split when I was trying to give the thing a quick coat. Ah well. I have another version in ArtStix that I'll use instead. It's the one below.

See? Art's still happening, even if I forget to post it most of the time.

Weapon of choice in Derwent drawing pencils

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is warrior. NHL playoffs are coming up pretty soon, although as a fan of a team that dislikes the playoffs so much that they haven't bothered to show up for years (sigh), I can't say that I'll be paying much attention.

The reason this goes with the prompt? Well, some of these players may think that they're warriors. Often the commentators call them warriors. They're not. They're highly-paid professionals who are generally only fighting for their salaries, given the fact that between the players and the management (and the whole system, really), there's not actually such a thing as team or city loyalty anymore.

Not much, anyway.

The closest I can get to warriors with these guys nowadays (the girls, of course, don't qualify for the highly-paid part. Maybe they're the real warriors?) is the fact that the sticks occasionally get used as weapons...

Ah well. If you want to put a more positive spin on this choice for the prompt, just think of all those weekend warriors out there who are still tying on the skates every week for some fun league or other. No highly-paid there either. Unless you count a beer afterwards with a group of friends.

Actually, that could probably count.

Daffodils in tri-tones

I've had to edit the snot out of this to get anything to show up, courtesy of my fussy cheap scanner. It's too bad, because part of the fun of using tri-tones is the unexpected things you get when you start shading, and that's totally missing from the scan. It's weird, someone like me liking that random factor that's a part of tri-tones, but I do.

Anyway, the Illustration Friday prompt is outside, and this is me doodling part of a bouquet of daffodils that my father bought me. Yeah, doodling "outside" inside. It's way too early for actual daffodils here.

I suppose flowers would be enough for the word outside, but Dad didn't buy me daffodils at random. April is Daffodil Month in support of the Canadian Cancer Society (and maybe other international societies? I'll have to look). The daffodil's meant to be a symbol of strength and courage for cancer patients/survivors and their families, amongst other things.

How does that fit with outside? Well, I can only imagine that finding yourself in the world of cancer treatment makes you feel outside of a lot of things -- your former life, life in general, the understanding of well-meaning people...

Yeah, that'd be me. I simply can't truly understand what it's like because I've been lucky so far. Lucky for myself, but also in my family. One aunt by marriage and one very old great-grandmother is all (and I know how unusual that is). A couple of friends. And I can't even pretend to understand what it's like.

I can support, though, and you can too. Buy a bouquet. Wear a pin. And be there for those in your life that haven't been so lucky.

Eggs in Derwent drawing pencils

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is strong.

Birds' eggs are amongst the most elegant and strongest constructions in nature. As long as the shell has no structural defects, a properly cradled egg can hold enormous amounts of weight.

The whole eggs and strong thing was ringing a bell, so I had a dip in my archives. Sure enough, back in 2009 the prompt had been strong as well, and I egged it up that time too. You can see that doodle below.



I guess that I really find eggs strong... or consistently, anyway.

Staple Hunting in Derwent drawing pencils

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is reflection. I figure that Tom (yes, that's right. Tom Cat is his name) deciding to hunt a staple that he found amongst some packing materials -- and which was immediately taken away from him because I'm no fun --  is kind of a reflection of his wilder relatives stalking actual food.

Tom's not actually a longhair, by the way. I was just feeling scribbly.

Turkey Brothers in Derwent drawing pencil

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is sleep.

You can't tell me that anything does sleep better than a cat. Unless it's two cats, that is.

This is a really (really) quick doodle of Tom and Bob. Yep, that's right. Tom Cat and Bob Cat. They're brothers, and they're turkeys. Thus, Turkey Brothers. If you want to see them in real life, just look for the label Turkey Brothers on my other blog.

Incidentally, I'm liking these Derwent  drawing pencils rather a lot. Smooth, soft, and much less fussy than Contes. In my limited experience, that is.

Emphasis on limited.