IF: Asleep

It seems I've got myself in a bit of a 'cat rut' due to Illustration Friday. I thought this page from my book dummy worked well for this week's theme:Hope everyone's having a great holiday weekend!

Springtime Planting

Here's something I'm working on:
This image is taken from a thumbnail sketched out while at my old job ten or so years ago. I love when I finally get a chance to get back to old ideas. I think I'm going to attempt to paint this one digitally.

IF: Soaked

Another quick and simple one for Illustration Friday from this morning's warm-up sketches:
A wet cat is a grumpy cat. I know that from first-hand experience. Since this little guy is a kitten, he'll probably bounce back from the unpleasant shock of being drenched pretty quickly and be right back at the bowl batting at the goldfish.

On an aside - Over the course of our three years here in Texas, I thought I'd seen all the variety of spring-time wildflowers central Texas has to offer, but this spring proved me wrong. So, I'm back again this year with my annual wildflower season post:
Poppies and ? This large field is located in Richardson, right next to the library and just off the highway. I love that even very urban parts of Dallas are sprinkled with these breath-taking patches of color!

Turtlehouse in the Rain

I had a chance at the end of last year to revisit my "Turtlehouse" character in a new illustration. This piece accompanied a Langston Hughes poem in a children's magazine:
Looking at it now, I notice the original is a bit dimmer than I'd like it to be (it's displaying a little higher contrast here than it is in real life). Even though it's a twilight rain scene, I think I should have added some moonlight-esque highlights to the characters to make them pop a little more. But that aside, I'm pretty content with the design and I like the characters.

The original painting is available in my etsy shop. Oh - and also, I had mentioned in a previous post that my "Ducklings on the Move" painting would soon be available - it's now listed at my shop as well.

IF: Beginner

A couple quick ones from this morning's sketches, both appropriate for today's Illustration Friday topic. And in doing so, I happily got a chance to try out my new Col-Erase pencils:
While sketching these little guys I couldn't help but think back to our cat's kitten days. Here's a pic of our little guy before he put on fifteen pounds and developed a deep and abiding fear of the laundry basket.
He's since grown up to be a good-natured and laid-back seven-year-old, but, my oh my, those kitten days were fun!

IF: Lesson

Here's another really quick sketch I did for this week's Illustration Friday, topic - Lesson:

Mama Bird's trying to figure out just what the little one is doing wrong. What I learned from drawing her is that it's a bit tricky to convey the expression of 'thoughtful criticism' on a bird when you have only one eye with which to portray the expression. Cocking the head helps, but it's still tricky. And I think I almost got it, but my mind's eye-version is a still a whole lot better.