inkspots and erasures

Illustration Friday- Ripple

2010-06-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

The frog made barely a ripple,

to avoid being seen.

watercolor, 21cm x 28cm

Illustration Friday - Linked

2010-04-13T05:02:00.000-07:00

watercolor and Pitt artist pen

Click to enlarge.

Illustration Friday - Dip

2010-04-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

watercolor and Derwent drawing pencil ("Chocolate")

Click to enlarge.

Illustration Friday - Rescue

2010-03-31T05:32:00.000-07:00

Will the little, green guy RESCUE the gum balls by extending his stretchy arms to catch them? Otherwise, they're in for a hard fall!

watercolor, Pitt pen and marker

Illustration Friday - Expired

2010-03-23T07:06:00.001-07:00

watercolor, Pitt artist pen and marker

click to enlarge

Illustration Friday - Subterranean

2010-03-12T18:11:00.000-08:00

A specimen of the SUB terranean species

watercolor and Pitt artist pen

18cm x 26cm

*Members of this species have a short life cycle. They spend a brief incubation period inside a paper cocoon. Upon emerging, they try to flee on their limp, rubbery legs. Any progress they make is barely perceptible. They are almost immediately captured by their primary predator, the human. When seized, they exude an oily substance as an escape mechanism. Some also possess extra-hot peppers. Neither of these defense strategies is effective against the ever-voracious human...

Illustration Friday - Brave

2010-03-10T10:48:00.001-08:00

Rollerskating can release your BRAVE/tough alter ego ;)

watercolor and Pitt artist pen

Click to enlarge.

Based upon my own skates, purchased @ 1992:

Illustration Friday - Perspective

2010-03-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

Mole tried to maintain PERSPECTIVE,

but ended up making a mountain

out of her molehill.

watercolor and Pitt pen

22cm x 26cm

Illustration Friday - Propagate

2010-02-25T07:52:00.000-08:00

Sea Slugs PROPAGATE strange appendages! Both these sea slugs actually exist. And there are several thousand more species of wildly designed and amazing sea slugs (properly called Nudibranchs). The green sea slug is a type that gets its coloring from the chloroplasts which it is able to photosynthesize and PROPAGATE within itself, making it a hybrid of animal and plant (cool!). And here is a photo of the other slug, which reminds me of freaky 1970's wallpaper. It is so strange, I couldn't have thought of it myself!

watercolor, Pitt pen and marker

20cm x 26cm

Illustration Friday - Adrift

2010-02-18T12:05:00.000-08:00

When Mylar Smiley found himself ADRIFT

over unfriendly territory,

he knew it would be difficult to live by his own motto.

watercolor and Pitt artist pen

21cm x 29cm

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-13T12:57:00.000-08:00

Bee is making a Valentine,

thinking of the perfect words to write on it...

thinking, also, that even the most perfect words

will not win over the wrong person,

while for the right person, no words are ever wrong.

(watercolor, ink, marker...Click to enlarge :))

Valentine...first version

2010-02-11T06:30:00.000-08:00

Illustration Friday - Muddy

2010-02-09T04:35:00.000-08:00

Clod knew he was attractive

but he didn't realize the true reason why...

You could say that his self-perception was MUDDY.

watercolor, Pitt artist pen and marker

17cm x 20cm

Illustration Friday - Focused

2010-02-04T18:31:00.000-08:00

watercolor and Pitt artist pen

20cm x 25cm

FOCUSED on tail

episode 5

2010-02-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

watercolor and Pitt artist pen

20cm x 23cm, Click to enlarge

I chose two very old pencils that I thought had the potential for looking sharp...Mr. HAPPY HOLIDAY got to have his long lost nose back (he was happy about that).

Illustration Friday - Clumsy

2010-01-27T05:59:00.001-08:00

watercolor and Pitt artist pen

21cm x 22cm

Mars Eraser became so nervous and CLUMSY in his confrontation with Venus Pencils that he almost fell off the planet! (Due to Venus's 0.9 surface gravity that was not possible.)

*Venus pencils were first made in 1905 by the American Lead Pencil Company which changed its name to Venus Pen and Pencil Corporation in 1956. In 1973, Faber-Castell bought them out. Thereafter, the Venus name and trademark were no longer used! I found a box with a few Venus pencils in my drawer...They survived for these several decades because they are all Hs - I don't like using hard pencils. You can see that the one on the right is a later pencil, made after Faber took over production...definitely not a Venus!

...Erasers (episode 3)

2010-01-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

watercolor, Pitt artist pen and marker

18cm x 18cm, Click to enlarge

And here is our real life model...

...Erasers (episode 2)

2010-01-19T05:53:00.000-08:00

watercolor and Pitt artist pen

19cm x 24 cm

Unless you are an artist, you might not be familiar with the Kneaded Rubber eraser. They commonly begin life as grey squares wrapped in cellophane, but they also come in red, yellow and blue. As you use them they pick up graphite which becomes incorporated into the rubber. You then knead and stretch them to bring some clean rubber to the surface (an action which is also a good tension reliever :)) Eventually, they become dark grey and cannot absorb any more graphite. It is then time for a new one!

Life of Erasers

2010-01-18T05:33:00.000-08:00

watercolor, Pitt artist pen, and marker

21cm x 23cm

Click to enlarge.

Illustration Friday - Confined

2010-01-12T07:59:00.000-08:00

CONFINED no longer!...

watercolor, Pitt artist pen, marker

21cm x 28cm, Click to enlarge

One thing I like about watercolor is that you can use it in a precise, controlled way or you can let it make free, watery, bleeding patterns on its own. I like using both methods in the same illustration.

Illustration Friday - Pioneer

2010-01-01T03:19:00.000-08:00

The PIE-ON-EAR trick requires complete concentration.

watercolor and marker

@18cm x 22cm

Illustration Friday - Undone

2009-12-27T06:17:00.001-08:00

He wasn't going to give up until he got the latch UNDONE.

watercolor, marker, acrylic ink

@17cm x 24cm, Click to enlarge

This was last week's IF theme, but I didn't get it posted on time due to holiday interference.

Illustration Friday - Hatch

2009-12-17T19:21:00.000-08:00

Two raccoons HATCH a plot
of twilit high jinks.

watercolor, @18cm x 23cm, Click to enlarge

I barely finished this by the deadline, because it took me all week (this is the 5th version!). At first I had two people, a man and a woman, as the characters. They too were hatching a plan in the dark, but I couldn't decide for what...an adventure?...Then, I just couldn't find it believable that they could agree on whatever they were plotting! :D

So I switched to raccoons. They were much more fun for me to paint anyway :). And gender relations don't interfere...What gender are these characters? I'm tending to think that the one on the right is male and the other is female, but they could be either, mix or match...androgynous (all you know is that they're both wearing naughty-looking boots). Raccoons seemed like a good choice, because they are like the thieves or secret agents of the animal world: I've read that they can scale brick walls (i.e. your house), climb rain pipes, chew through metal (the soffit on your house), pry open metal grates (air vents), thereby gaining access to your attic and setting up headquarters there! The rest of their efforts are directed towards raiding bird feeders, garbage cans and campsites, and doing other things more ingenious than what I can think of right now.
.

Illustration Friday - Crunchy

2009-12-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

Crackling leaves, CRUNCHY nuts, frozen berries

watercolor and marker

19cm x 20cm

Click to enlarge!

Illustration Friday: Unbalanced

2009-11-19T15:50:00.000-08:00

The butterfly was unbalanced ever since losing an antenna.

IF: "Idle"

2009-07-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's hard to get these guys to do any work!
Click to enlarge.

Illustration Friday: Tango

2009-07-19T04:50:00.000-07:00

Tango-rines.

Illustration Friday: "Hollow"

2009-07-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

My trolls may have been hollow, but they were real enough to me.

I painted this from memory, for alas, I no longer have my trolls...I so wish I did. These were the original trolls made in the 1960s. Their hair was made of mohair from a goat, and each troll's hair was distinctive because of that: some was long and wispy and coarse, some shorter and thicker... My blue-haired troll was my prized favorite because it's hair was both long and very thick, and softer than most.

I could twist and twiddle their hair into buns and braids endlessly...and it was the nature of that woolly hair to retain those hairdos until you undid them. Their hair could also be used to tickle your own face or to hold under your chin for a colored beard. I took them wherever I went: they were great for long car rides or to keep in my desk at school (we girls all had them).

There were outfits for them and shoes for their wide feet (all the better for standing on). And one of the cool things about a troll is that they are genderless until you put a set of clothes on them. They are odd-looking and a little bit ugly, but their smiles make them loveable...and of course they have cute cheeks! ;)

Trolls made in later decades often had synthetic hair or jewels in their bellybuttons! Both those things are a total sacrilege!!

Illustration Friday: "Shaky"

2009-07-09T14:57:00.001-07:00

She was very shaky after her bat encounter!

Illustration Friday: Worn

2009-07-01T14:49:00.001-07:00

Boots worn for Walkin'.

Illustration Friday: Drifting

2009-06-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

A Least Skipper drifting from one Nodding Thistle to another.

IF: Craving

2009-06-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

This tortoise was craving a succulent succulent.

IF: Adapt

2009-06-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

Does a species adapt to blend in with its environment or was it designed that way originally?

This is a common katydid...there are other varieties of katydids that resemble leaves even more uncannily: brown ones that resemble dead leaves; mottled, misshapen ones that look like torn, mildewed leaves; even fluorescent pink katydids that inhabit pink flowers!

The phenomenon of camouflaged insects and small animals is fascinating, mysterious and mind-boggling: there are miniscule frogs that look just like bird droppings (I'm not sure what that does for their self-esteem!), toads and insects that look exactly like moss, bark, lichen, twigs, thorns, leaves, etc. (quite elaborately so). Most of these creatures are so bizarre looking that I can't help wondering: what is really the Source of their design?..."natural selection" can't begin to explain it.

For your own amazement, do please look up more examples of camouflage and mimicry in nature...I hope your mind will be boggled too!

IF: Cracked

2009-05-22T14:46:00.000-07:00

Illustration Friday's theme this week is "Cracked"...The first thing I thought of was a crack in a tree trunk. It's an image I've used in several drawings...It must mean something to me, but I'm not sure what. This is a large study I did a of couple years ago.

Pitt pen, 15"x 19.5"

IF: Contagious

2009-05-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

Do you ever find yourself reaching into someone's snack...even something you don't especially like to eat?...Because, snacking is contagious!

Hedgehog

2009-05-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

This illustration was inspired by some wonderful photos on Nechepurenka's blog of a hedgehog in her dacha. Her post title "Hedgehog but not in fog" refers to the 1975 Russian animated short film by Yuriy Norshteyn, "Hedgehog in the Fog" , which is a favorite of hers. It's a real treasure: well-made and so delightful and funny...It won many awards, including Best Animated Film of all time!

IF: Parade

2009-05-11T12:35:00.001-07:00

Illustration Friday's theme this week is "Parade". I don't like parades...or crowds or noise. So, at first, I didn't know what my subject would be. Then I remembered the large spotted slugs I'd seen, a few days ago, crossing a sidewalk after it rained. (Of course they were being trod upon! by passers-by). I suppose most people think slugs are unpleasant...but I think they're pretty cool. Try holding one-you might see what I mean.
So this is a different sort of parade: slow, laborious, and meandering...

IF: Hierarchy

2009-05-05T04:40:00.000-07:00

Which is greater: the strength of that which knocks you down or the strength you find in yourself to stand back up (again and again)?

I used the tiger image because I actually have this shirt (and I always feel fiercer when I wear it!)

Juried Show at Banana Factory

2009-05-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight was the Opening Reception for the Lehigh Art Alliance Spring Juried Exhibition at the Banana Factory arts center in Bethlehem, PA. I have a watercolor painting in it titled "Peaceful" which is a self-portrait (maybe you can spot it, right under the L in Lehigh)--it won the Second Place Award ...and also my "Carolina Wren" drawing, which won Honorable Mention. I often lament that this area is not that great for the arts, but we drew a large crowd this evening. This is probably the best location our art alliance has had the opportunity to show at, as far as the number of visitors who will see it. The exhibition lasts till August 23.

IF: Theater

2009-04-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

Illustration Friday's topic of the week is "Theater"...I saw this movie on New Year's Day and loved it! A good movie and dark chocolate RAISINETS make the perfect theater experience.

IF: Impossibility

2009-04-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

Black Magic ink and Watercolor, 20cm x 20cm

Illustration Friday has a different topic each week. Anyone may submit an illustration of the current topic...which this week is: IMPOSSIBILITY.

I thought I would give it a try...So, here is a quick sketch of my idea: Those impossible-to-reach places (which for this spider would be it's whole body!).

Carolina Wren

2009-04-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

Pitt pen on Arches watercolor paper, 12"x 16"

Tufted Titmouse

2009-04-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

Watercolor and Pitt pen, 11cm x 12cm

Grasshopper

2009-04-14T13:27:00.001-07:00

Watercolor and Black Magic ink, 13cm x 13cm.

New Moleskine

2009-04-14T13:03:00.000-07:00

This is a quick, spontaneous sketch I did inside the cover of my new, and first, moleskine sketchbook using my grandfather's fountain pen. The butterfly is a mourning cloak, which a friend mentioned seeing on one of the first days of Spring.

Lichen

2009-04-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

Bump on a Blog

2009-04-14T12:57:00.000-07:00