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.