Fireweed in pen and watercolour pencil

Illustration Friday's prompt is pioneer this week (bit odd for Christmas, I suppose, but it worked for me) and, being the nerd naturalist that I am, my brain immediately went to pioneer species. Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) is an early coloniser of cleared or burned areas (as its name suggests) and can often be found as a bright contrast to the charred tree remnants around it.

The flowers are also pretty good in salads.

As always, click on the thumbnail for a larger version.

Just some watercolour silliness

These are... not much, really. I'm only posting them because I didn't manage to do anything (yet... but if I haven't managed it yet it's probably not going to happen) for last week's Illustration Friday and I thought that the blog might be feeling lonely or neglected.

Ok, not the last part.

But anyway.

What you see here is exactly what the post title would lead you to expect. I played with the watercolours a bit while I was housebound during the last cold spell. Oh, wait. Not the last cold spell. The second-to-last.

Not that it matters.

But anyway. Again.

Up top? Some nonsense with weird washes, salt, an emery board, and a drinking straw. What's it supposed to be? Nothing.

Below? Something a little more somethingish. I have a collection of mini bottles (I think they were given out in laundry soap or tea or something when I was a kid. My grandmother saved them for me). And these are some of them.

The end.

I really have no idea what to think of this post.

Sea Turtle in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is hatch. And this is a sea turtle. Of some sort. The source I got my resource photos from didn't say which species.

My apologies to anyone who actually knows more about turtles than I do (which is... a lot of people, really. I'm a mammalogist by training. I like reptiles, but that's about as far as my expertise goes) for the lack of detail. I was just hoping to get enough to give the idea of the face. For whatever reason, it amuses me that baby turtles are born already looking mildly peeved about the world they've ended up in.

Yeah, I don't know either.

Wild Purple Clematis in watercolour

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is entangled. I know this particular version of wild clematis doesn't look terribly tangled, but that's because this is more what it looks like when it's trailing along the ground rather than climbing. When it's trained on a trellis it gets extremely entangled on itself. And anything else that's in its path.

So why doodle it this way? Well, apparently the plant was hated by early horseback travellers around here. It would creep along the ground, mostly unnoticeable when it wasn't in flower, and was strong enough to trip any horse that wandered into it.

That counts as entangled, yes? I hope so.

Winter Music in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is music. I had thoughts about going abstract for this one, but in the end my brain's too tired from this past week to start thinking that way. So... a chickadee instead.

And why? Well, because they're about the only things out there still making music at this time of year. Around here, anyway. Besides, they're a favourite of mine.

Black-capped Chickadee songs (or vocalisations, if you want to go all naturalist. Which I don't at the moment) are actually pretty complex and are worth looking up. You know, rather than me looking them up for you. I'm having a bit of a lazy mind day, I guess.

My own personal music today has been 60s pop. No idea why, and nothing to do with chickadees. But there you go.

What I did at the conference

I've been away at a conference for most of this week. You know, in case you wondered.

I should make it clear that the conference was for environmental educators, not Play-doh. You have to do something to keep your hands occupied while your brain is (allegedly) engaged, though, so Play-doh it was. That and pipe cleaners.

This is the only effort I took a picture of, but the total output (as best I can remember it) was one bird, one ear, a bowl, a fish, several small vases, and a lot of general smooshing (all with the Play-doh), and a flower and a snail (with the pipe cleaners).

I should have taken a photo of the snail, really. It was kind of neat.

Anyway, I'm back now and will hopefully have something to post for this week's Illustration Friday sometime in the next day or two.





If I don't decide to just spend the weekend sleeping, that is.

Blur in watercolour and pigment pen

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is blur. Well, hey. Blur is right up my alley, seeing as how I'm nearsighted and astigmatic. All I have to do is take off my glasses and anything that's more than half a metre from my face is nothing but blur. Spread-out blur, at that.

Yeah, welcome to my world.

The camas should probably be more blue-purple than I have it here, by the way. I just felt like purple-purple, that's all.

As usual, click on the thumbnail for a bigger version.