A bad morning for Bud the Bug

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is stomp.

I'm, um, sure that Bud will be ok.





Really.

Shell in pen & ink

I've already submitted once for Illustration Friday's word swirl this week, but since I had time this morning I thought I'd add a quick shell doodle. I have a feeling that I'll be getting out my model shells tonight (yes, I have shells that do modelling) and doodle a few more, because shells are fun.

This one was mostly imaginary, as anyone who knows their gastropods (which, actually, I don't. I'm a mammalogist) probably knew immediately. The pens are Stabilo's Point 88, which I picked up at Christmas to force myself to stop thinking only in black monochrome when I'm playing with pens. And why exactly these colours? Well, if you figure that one out, let me know. I'm curious too.

The wrist is still not as stable as I'd like it to be, but I miss pen work so I'm going to get back to it anyway. If it's shaky and people consider that a stylistic choice, I'm fine with it.

Or at least I'll keep telling myself that.

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.

Village Tree in watercolour crayon

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is village.

A tree can be a village of sorts, can't it?



As usual with watercolour and my cheap scanner, I've had to fudge this a bit to get most of it to come through. Also as usual, sometimes I play with silly filters afterwards just for fun. Below, behold this doodle in...

Neon!

Actually, I kind of like it. Maybe I should "draw" in neon more often.

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.

Just a couple of doodles

 This was just a bit of play with the Wacom Bamboo Paper app on my tablet. So far not bad, but I have another app that I like a bit better (I'll upload something form it at some point or other). Still, can't complain much about something that I got for free.

I still don't think I'll get rid of paper since texture is such a big part of things for me, but for casual doodling digital can be handy.

As I'm learning.

Branches with chickadee

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is animal. And this is another week of me making myself slightly uncomfortable.

I just don't know where manipulated photos fit in my personal art, you see. I've no doubt that there's art to it, just as I've no doubt that I've put some work into this and made some choices. I almost want to show you the original so that you can see the differences, but in a way that bothers me even more. You know, like I'm a five-year-old trying to prove that colouring outside the lines makes it my picture now.

Ah well. That's as may be. And if I get time later today maybe I'll do something that involves actual paper and I'll feel happier about the whole thing.

A bit of discomfort isn't a bad thing anyway, I figure.

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.

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.

Sea Slug in Art Stix and pencil crayon

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is sea, and this is a nudibranch. They're more familiarly known as Sea Slugs, and the nudibranchs really are in the same Gastropod group as land slugs. They're kind of like snails without shells, but much, much more colourful. I've picked a relatively simple-looking one here (Chromodoris annae, or Anna's Nudibranch), but there are plenty of other out there that are much, much more impressive.

Nudibranchs tend to feed on very specific organisms (this one concentrates on Petrosaspongia sp. sponges), and I've lost the source page now but I think I read that some of the colours of the nudibranchs come from their food sources. Kind of like flamingos gaining their pink colouration from shrimps.

While doodling this sea slug I discovered that it's hard (at least for me) to make them look at all realistic because they just plain don't look real. I might have had better luck in graphite, just going for the shape and shading... but then I would have lost the colour, which is pretty much what nudibranchs are known for. Ah well, if it looks like a cartoon it looks like a cartoon.

It's surrounded in scribbles anyway, so why I was even the slightest bit concerned about realism is beyond me.

Sea-gooseberry in Derwent Metallics & carbon pencil

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is light.

The Comb-jellies or Ctenophores are a group of jelly-like aquatic animals. They're largely colourless (well, most of them are. There are exceptions, though), but as they move their rows of propelling cilia they scatter light and look as though they have moving rainbows, more or less.

There are some ctenophores that are bioluminescent (that is, they can produce their own light), but most of the ones you see on those deep-sea submarine documentaries are just shining in the light that the filming equipment uses.

This doodle is VERY loosely based on a comb-jelly known as the Sea-gooseberry (Pleurobrachia pileus), which is found world-wide. Well, in the oceans at least. I have a feeling that you'd have a time finding them here in Alberta.

I wish I'd had my black paper to do this one on, but since I don't have it with me you get carbon pencil scribble instead. Ah well. You work with what you have, right?

Octopus Garden in watercolour

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is octopus.

Octopus gardens are real things. Octopods have been known to carefully arrange rocks, shells, and debris around the entrances to their dens. It's probably for camouflage, but who knows? They've shown in lab that they're very intelligent. Maybe they like to decorate as well as protect.

I was going to ink this one after I was done painting, but I decided that I sort of liked it the way it is. Weird, for me and painting (for those new to the program, I have the brush skills of a five-year-old). I might ink it later. We'll see after I've let it sit for a while.

In other news, I opened my travel pan kit to find the top half of my water brush missing. No big deal since I hardly ever use it, but how would it just disappear? I'm guessing that I took it out at some point to clean it, and then...? Ah well, it'll turn up. Or not. Or I'll just buy another one at some point. There's lots of brushes out there.

Especially for someone who doesn't actually paint.

IF's prompt a while back was ocean, and I did a proper octopus for that one. It's right here. Oh, and of course we need to end with one thing. Everybody sing!

Mute Swan in pencil crayon

 This week's Illustration Friday prompt is silence. That was tough for me, since I don't think there really is such a thing as silence. On Earth, anyway. After all, in space no one can hear you scream...

On Earth, though, sound is everywhere. Just because our so-so hearing doesn't catch it all doesn't mean it isn't there. And even when we think we're going somewhere for the "silence", it isn't. Quiet, maybe. Muffled, even. But not silent.

I suppose I should say at this point for anyone who hasn't read the blog bio that I'm a professional naturalist. I'm paid to notice sounds out there that most people who don't listen everyday wouldn't hear. I've never in my life been for a silent walk, because there's always something out there making sounds. That's also why I never walk with an mp3 player, by the way. Artificial sound just gets in the way of the real thing.

Anyway, for the prompt I went with a bird (Cygnus olor, the Mute Swan) with a version of silence in its name. Ironically, and going a little way to prove my point, the Mute Swan isn't even mute.

This was done very scribbly and quickly, partly because I tend to get a little fussy about detail, and partly because I've been trying to train my injured wrist (yeah, still working on that blasted thing) not to tense up so much when I try to draw. The neck's a bit short, I think, but overall I guess it actually looks like a swan. Yay wrist.

Just for fun, here's Bob the kitten (he doesn't qualify as Bob Cat yet. And yes, the name was on purpose. His brother is Tom...) imploring me to stop taking his picture and get to the art stuff already instead of just leaving it on the bed.

You're right, Bob, but the camera's fun too.

Sorry, buddy.



Well, not really.

Bufflehead in pencil crayon

I drew a duck last night.

No, not randomly. I needed it for work. Yep, I'm still my own illustrator, so to speak. Sometimes it's interesting working for a non-profit.

Anyway, this is just to show that I'm still doodling, even if you're not seeing much of it at the moment.

Fragile? in pencil crayon

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is fragile. This butterfly would be known to those of you in the UK as a Camberwell Beauty, but to most of the rest of us (in various languages) it's a Mourning Cloak. That's where scientific names come in handy, so let's call it Nymphalis antiopa. And this one's feeding on... I dunno. Cotton candy? To be honest, my wrist was completely done for by the time I got that far, so it's feeding on scribbles.

So, butterflies. The epitome of fragile, right? With those thin, scaly wings that are so easily broken, and the ephemeral life span and all.

Not so fast, Sam. Not only is this particular butterfly tough enough to be found all over North American and Eurasia in a variety of climates, it's also capable of going through (at least) two broods even where I live in Canada. And how does it manage that in such a short season?

The second brood of adults overwinters.

Yeah, seriously. Forget what you know about insects getting through cold, long winters as eggs or as buried chrysalids. These beauties and a few others find their way down under leaf litter, piles of sticks, or other sheltered places and go through the entire winter as adults. Then, they're out flying pretty much as soon as the air's warm enough to allow it. Even before there's food around for them. They're our first butterflies of spring, and always looked forward to for that reason. If you want to encourage them in your yard, leave a bit of a brush pile in a back corner and they'll have a place to shelter for the winter.

That whole thing astounds me, really, and I talk about this sort of thing for a living. I guess the lesson is to not be fooled by the appearance of fragile.

Or something.

Maybe there is no lesson except that the world is a very cool place and I wish that we'd take more time to look at it that way.