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.

IF: Bicycle

I did this really quick little sketch for Illustration Friday. The theme this week is bicycle:

I'm trying to get myself in the habit of doing quick warm-up sketches in the morning where I have to produce something in a relatively short amount of time. It can be anything at all and it doesn't have to be good. I just have to agree with myself to leave it alone after my allotted time is up no matter how badly I may want to fix. Like those tires, for example. I rather dislike the tires, but I'm forbidding myself to do anything about it (which is hard when you're me). Anyway, I'm hoping this kind of exercise will gradually help me to loosen up a bit as well as provide an opportunity to play with media I seldom touch. Today I used micron pens and colored pencil. I can't remember the last time I used micron pens...