Another Iceland Poppy

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

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

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...

...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.