Stereoscope in pen and ink

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

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.

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

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...

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"!!!

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

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.