Illustration Friday: Discovery

There have been many discoveries this week. The first one is that the Greyhound bus is not a viable means of travel for me and my children (ages 3 and 6) We are visiting my parents, and after multiple delays and having one of my bags stolen in Dallas, I bought plane tickets for the trip home. (Yes the bag was stolen, someone found it empty in a trash can in the Dallas bus station and called my husband's cell phone which happened to be still on the bag--the bus tags had been cut off.) Thankfully the other discoveries on this trip have been more pleasant. The idea started with seeing my daughter in the mountain grasses that swayed over her head. And then I was reading Eckhart Tolle's A NEW EARTH. He talks about observing the world in terms of seeing through the outer form and into the inner essence. As I read this I glanced at the bookmark I'd grabbed from my Mom's bookshelf and it was covered with random design patterns. And lo, I'd made the discovery of my idea for Illustration Friday. (albeit many days late...)

Illustration Friday: Geeky

And the geeks shall inherit the Earth. (At least this is what my Dad implied.) It's true in my life, since video games put bread and butter on the table (and numerous consoles, stations, controllers, cartridges, disks, etc...) I'm not supposed to complain, but some days I wish for a break from hearing beeps, boops and explosions.

Illustration Friday: Twisted

I’ve been reading Charles de Lint’s WIDDERSHINS. His stories are always filled with these wonderful fairy creatures made from all sorts of things. So I decided to just try and create a character that was made from leaves and twisted branches and I drew the little capering man. When I saw this week’s theme I recalled the little man, but I also recalled a dried bit of twisted vine I’d come across when the family was walking at Walnut Creek. So I created the other character from the idea of the twisted vine. They need a background. But that may or may not happen.

Illustration Friday: Camouflage

This week's topic made me think of the way nature uses camouflage, but it also brought to mind: hiding in the open. So I've returned to one of my favorite styles where two images

overlap.

Illustration Friday: Rejection

This topic struck a nerve. I'll never understand why artists (of all shapes, sizes and assorted colors), whose job it is to be more observant and sensitive to the world in general, are expected at the same time to develop a thicker skin than most other professions. How many times will a doctor be told, "Yes you do lovely work, but your style just isn't right for us."

So my little rooster, Bandi Boodle Boo, who traveled the world to find his crow, is now travelling the mail encountering rejection and hopefully (someday soon!) will find acceptance seemed the apt subject to illustrate this topic. I took a more emotional approach to creating this.

Illustration Friday: Suit

Why swim suit of course! We took a weekend get-a-way to Port Aransas, Tx. We left Friday, so I didn't know what the theme was--I just did the pencil sketch for my own amusement after we'd spent the day playing in the surf on Sat. I scanned it and colored it in Photoshop. (A little artistic license with the color of the water--it was pretty murky and filled with loose seaweed that would wrap around our legs--ick! The kids still loved it.)

Your Paradise

While this is not my personal vision of paradise, I'm sure the kids might have a different perspective. Last night I took them to Ready, Set, Play which is a nicely appointed warehouse sized storefront filled with inflatable bouncers--the fancy ones with mazes and slides. My daughter and I had been before but this was my son's first trip. His jaw dropped and he clapped his hands to the side of his face as we walked through the door and he saw a Kid's Playland Paradise.