Illustration Friday: Backwards

I have a friend who has a sarcastic streak. One day my three year old told me she didn't want to talk to my friend. When I asked why I was told, "She talks backwards."

I'm not entirely happy with this one, but not everything can be a portfolio piece. Sometimes just doing is enough. I've met at least one of my IF goals which was to keep the creative machine going. (Just keep drawing, just keep drawing, just keep drawing, drawing, drawing...)

Illustration Friday: Little Things

I thought too much on this one. I had images of camels fleeing from straws in my head. But then I had too much going on this weekend, (this week, this month...) to really take the time with that one.
But the other day my daughter asked me, "Mom did you want to be when you grow up what I want to be?"
"And what do you want to be?"
"Artist!"
"Yes I did."
So while my daughter was working on her art skills on the dry erase board I took a few little minutes to do a quick sketch with sharpie on paper. And realise how blessed I am with these little skills I've had since I was her age.

Illustration Friday: Excess

'Tis the season to be overwhelmed by excess. Between my son's early December birthday and Christmas I always get a little panicked this time of year. I also find myself getting caught up in consumerism. Every store I go to has rows and rows filled with shiny things that I don't really need--but they are so pretty. I added the cat as the element of chaos that also seems to come along and give us perfectionists just one more set of things to worry about. (and to remember to just let go and laugh when the tree falls down...)

Illustration Friday: Zoo

I alway love the little train rides they have at some zoos. And are we watching the animals or are they watching us?

Sea Turtles and Such

I missed last week's Illustration Friday because we were on vacation. (Sometimes by happy accident I will have done something that fits the theme anyway--but not so this time.) We visited my husband's parents in Port Aransas, TX. There were numerous sea turtles bobbing in the water along the jetty one day when we took a walk. (It was a pretty hair raising walk with my almost 7 year old son leaping from big granite rock to big granite rock as we made our way out along the jetty. Both grandma and I had our hearts in our throats at various moments)

Earlier in the trip we took a glass bottomed boat tour at Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, TX. We saw some tiny turtles swimming under the boat but didn't see the ancient snapping turtle rumored to live there. My 3 year old daughter did her own artistic interpretation of a snapping turtle.

Illustration Friday: Scale

I decided to play with both the physical object and the reference to size. I created a shape in Photoshop of the dragon in the scale and then used that to make the smaller scales on the big dragon. (In a completely conceptual world the scale would diminish into infinity--but I just did it once here) I also created a dragon brush to do the background which consists of dragons of various scale--of course.

Illustration Friday: Hats

My daughter provided the perfect pose for the topic of Hats. She came out wearing a dragon costume with a hood. Over that she'd put a striped knit hat--with a pom pom. The final hat was a pirate hat. Later she tried to add a robot helmet but that wouldn't play nice with the pirate hat...