Tulip in watercolour pencil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"!!!!!!!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The gesso is getting out of hand

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

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.

----------

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

And another page of "art"

Newspaper headlines and some oil pastel resist, this time.

And it's very blue...

Fake garden in pen and ink

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"

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

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"

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

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...

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

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

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"

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...

Tie job in graphite

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is paisley. And I... dislike paisley. Rather a lot, really. Not in its original Indian form -- some of that paisley work can be amazing -- but in the horribly gaudy way that it's often used in Western cultures. It's almost a gut reaction with me. Too many flashbacks to bad polyester 70s caftans or things like that, maybe.

Anyway, I decided that the best way for someone like me to do paisley would be to ransack a closet, grab a tie, and in tribute to my father (who dislikes ties almost as much as I dislike paisley), heap it in a fairly unceremonious pile. And there you have it.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

More pointess "art"

I know pointlessness usually belongs to the other blog, but it's over here today because for various reasons I won't be doing anything for this week's Illustration Friday prompt.

And this?

Is a pizza.

Well, it's tempera over words torn from pizza delivery ads, anyway.

I guess my inner five-year-old was hungry that day.

The struggling artist?

The little modelling clay men were upset that they weren't given the chance to participate in Drawing Day.

I suppose I really should let them out more often...

Vole track in watercolour pencil

Quick watercolour sketch for Illustration Friday's prompt of trail.  This was based on a photo I took in the sanctuary where I work (ok, strictly speaking I work at the nature centre at the entrance to the sanctuary.  A lot of the actual work takes place in the sanctuary, though).  It was winter, and just the time of day when the low sun is turning the snow a weird combination of yellow highlights and blue shadows.

The vole had crossed the walking path and was headed towards its tunnel in a snow drift.  There was a bit of open space before it could get there, though, and although it did its best to hide under some of the dead grass stems along the way it was pretty lucky that there weren't any predators about at the time.  I'm assuming, anyway.  No signs of a struggle, as they say.

Not sure why I chose a winter theme when I'm sooo not a fan of winter, but there you go.

Oh, and if any of you haven't posted for Drawing Day yet, there's still time.  Assuming that you're reading this today, of course...

Drawing Day 2010

Yep, here's my Drawing Day daylily, fresh from the sketchbook.  And for a change I'm not going to say that it's a rush-job before work, or sorry I'm posting a day late, or whatever other excuse you usually hear.  I remembered it was Drawing Day, I had the time (um, in between laundry loads), and here you have the result.  The original was a photo I took a few years ago, since the daylilies aren't blooming yet and I felt like drawing a daylily.

For the media geeks out there, this was done in Pigma sepia Microns (05 and 01.  And yes, I know that my camera's not really registering it as sepia.  It is, though) in a Moleskine sketchbook.

Happy Drawing Day, all.

Are you art?

Insofar as the... thing you see to the left has a title, Are You Art would be that title.  If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you might even be able to see those exact words in there somewhere.  I promise that they're there.

Yes, folks, this is how I've been spending a bit of my time lately.  Doing my best to destroy a perfectly innocent sketchbook.  It's just an ordinary recycled paper sketchbook, but for some reason I've decided to punish it via mixed media.  The pages are wavy, the cover is already warped... and why?

To be honest, I don't know.  I guess maybe I wanted to shake things up a bit.  Try some different techniques without the outcome having to matter.  Ok -- make a mess, no strings attached.

And am I getting anything out of it?

Oh, I don't know.  I'll admit that it's kind of relaxing to come home and gesso the hell out of a page after a busy day's work.  And I'm probably learning things about the various media that I might not have otherwise.

But...

I can't help feeling like a five-year-old wrecking a book for no apparent reason.

Hey, wait.  Is that really such a bad thing?  Maybe we all need to feel like five-year-olds every once in a while...

Anyway, I took a few scans of the thing this morning, so maybe I'll post one now and then if I haven't been doing any doodling (and so far as the doodling goes, I've just been a little busy lately.  That's all).  After all, I hesitated to post this one, but now that I've done it you may as well see just how big a mess I can actually make.

Oh, and don't forget tomorrow:

Asparagus in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is early.  Since asparagus is pretty much without question the earliest vegetable growing around here (unless rhubarb counts as a vegetable?  It's used more as a fruit, but really there's nothing fruity about the part that's used), I figured it was time for an asparagus study.

Turned out to be more interesting than a person might think, actually.  Like a lot of plants, asparagus has a very distinct spiral growth pattern.  It's kind of fun to trace the spiral paths of the... um... scales?  Leaflets?  Hey, I'm a zoologist.  I'm not exactly up on my asparagus terminology.  Anyway, the whole thing twists as it grows, which appeals to my pattern-freak side quite nicely.

My father's asparagus patch is an interesting jungle of last year's leftover stems, since he rarely uses them.  It must make it a challenge for the new growth to find space to force its way up, but it obviously still manages.

In case anyone wonders, my model was very tasty...

Wilson in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is fearless.  I'm hoping to sit down and do something specifically for the word, but at the moment my neck's out and sitting to doodle isn't the most comfortable prospect.  So, just in case I don't get to it later in the week, here's a page from my sketchbook from a few days ago.  Wilson was (well, is.  Unless he's been eaten by something.  It happens) a squirrel hanging out at the nature centre where I work.  If you want to know why Wilson is a fit for fearless (and, for that matter, why Wilson is Wilson) and aren't scared of left-handed penmanship, click on the photo to enlarge it.

Chrysalis in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is cocoon.  I'm afraid it didn't do much for me.  Wrong season, I think.  If it was summer I'd be all over butterflies or moths (erm, so to speak), and if it was winter I'd be all for cocooning in a warm quilt.  As it is, though... well, here's a sketchbook page just to keep me from getting lazy about IF.

Viola adunca in watercolour

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is ahead.  Around here, Early Blue Violet (and yes, I know that it's purple.  Botany-types are weird about calling purples blues) blooms weeks ahead of most of our other native plants.  If you don't count the trees, that is.  Believe me, my sinuses can inform you that the poplar trees have been in bloom for a while now.

Anyway.  My father has these growing wild all over the yard, and it's always great to see a bit of colour when most other things are still struggling to get past their winter browns.

This was a quick watecolour sketch (ok, Derwent Aquatone, to be honest.  But I was using a brush...) in my moleskine.

Just for the heck of it, here's a very wonky picture of a really quick sketch from a couple of weeks ago showing the non-native species in my father's yard that was ahead of... well, pretty much everything, as crocuses usually are.  And in case anyone wonders, they managed to finish blooming without being eaten by deer.  Now let's all knock wood for the tulips, ok?

Recycled flower in... well...

Construction paper, stretched-out paper cup, and felt marker.

Craft day at work, yes.

Happy Earth Day, everyone.

Chain in graphite and coloured pencil

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is linked.  Not a surprise with my ecology background that I started thinking about links in nature.  Which narrows things down NOT AT ALL, unfortunately for inspiration, because everything out there is linked in some way.

I settled on a couple of different links.  First, pollinator and flower.  Pretty serious link there since each has, over time, adapted its structures to suit the other.  That can cause problems when a plant becomes dependent on just one pollinator, especially when pollinators are starting to disappear.

My pollinator will be disappearing pretty soon, if she's not careful.  The second link here is between predator and prey.  Enough said there, I guess, except to mention that I think Goldenrod Spiders are pretty cool.  But then, I think all spiders are pretty cool.  I'm weird that way.

This was done with graphite pencil on textured paper, and included liberal use of my left middle finger.  Erm, for blending.  I don't have any stumps with me just now.  I added a slight bit of coloured pencil to give the whole thing a faded, antiquey look.  Did it work?  I'm sort of on the fence, to be honest.  Posting it anyway.