IF: Vocal

A quick sketch of a little girl being rather vocal about some turtles she's spotted for this week's Illustration Friday:My husband can attest that I react similarly whenever I spot wild animals on our frequent hikes. I guess some of us never grow up...

IF: Return

The first idea that popped into my mind for this week's Illustration Friday topic was returning library books - probably because I had some library books that needed to be returned soon too! Here's the quick resulting sketch:

IF: Swamp

I'd never realized before that swamps seem to be one of my favorite settings for paintings until I started thinking about today's Illustration Friday topic. I discovered I have a number of paintings set in the swamp, so I thought I'd cheat a little bit and drag another one out from the archives. If you've been to my website, then you've probably already seen this and if you haven't, then it'll be brand new to you!
This painting is available as a print on my Etsy shop.

This topic seems unusually appropriate to me since only just a couple weeks ago we visited the Heard Natural Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary where there's a beautiful wetlands trail:

I'm glad I found some local inspiration for future set-in-the-swamp paintings!

IF: Shade

A quick one for this week's Illustration Friday:I played the beautiful and meditative game, Journey, just after it released last week and feeling inspired by their use of color, I decided to color this sketch based on the "Desert" level.

I just realized as I went to post this on Illustration Friday's site, that, in my haste, I read "shades" as "shade" which changes the meaning quite a bit. Ah well.... I'll make sure next time to re-read before I sketch! Reading is fundamental after all...

At The Mailbox

Finished up the painting from this sketch:

Cool Dragons

Some small paintings I created for a Memory-style card game that appeared in this past January's issue of Spider magazine. Each one is available for purchase in my Etsy shop:

IF: Fluid

I thought I'd unbury this ancient painting from the archive section on my website for this week's Illustration Friday. This painting is from many, many years ago, but seemed fairly appropriate for today's topic:
It's even doubly appropriate, since as it happens, I'm currently working on a companion piece to this illustration which I hope to finish soon.