Runcible Spoon

Whoops! It's been a while since I've updated. I found out that today is Edward Lear's birthday. I've had this painting of the Owl and the Pussycat done for a year and never posted it. So I'll put it up now. It's hard to make an owl play an instrument. This was a specific type of owl but now I've forgotten which one; some kind of Asian fish owl perhaps.

I love that Edward Lear was an excellent artist, in watercolor and oil, of animals and landscapes, but that the art that accompanies his nonsense poems and stories is so simple and crazy.

Watercolor and brown ink.

Grab It!

Guess I ran out of artsteam after October. Well, once again I hope to make more art and to enjoy 2012. Here's a little painting of made-up creatures. I was inspired by some new art books I got for Christmas.

Figure out what you want in the new year and keep reaching for it!

A Sailor Travels to Many Lands...

The yearly Pinki the bilby in costume picture. I've been wanting to dress in a sailor outfit for a while now, but they're all very tiny and revealing and cheap looking. Some day...

Watercolor in the Japanese watercolor pad I got for a dollar, so it's not very good quality.

Fury

A mother werewolf protecting her baby. I should've gone further with the were-ness and rage. I did make her wearing the traditional plaid that werewolves seem to prefer.
Watercolor and sepia ink.

Beach Bummy

A mummy enjoying a day at the beach. I didn't want her to look this dead; well, you know what I mean, she's dead, but reanimated and is just taking a nap on the sand. Anyway, a non-water soluable pen sketch blended with water, and a touch of watercolor. She has a big hole from where they took our her organs.

Oh no he didn't

I had a tape recorded off TV of the Will Vinton Claymation Comedy of Horrors special. I really liked all the different characters in it. Rewatching it now, it still has its charms. I'm a sucker for stop motion animation. A large part of the story takes place at a kind of monster convention on Halloween. This is a swamp creature guy who shows up a few times. I thought his sweater vest was great, and I liked how he stood with his arms bent funny and half-closed eyes. I think a monster he doesn't like just walked into the room as he was sampling an anchovy-and-octopus eye appetizer.

Watercolor and blue pencil drawing.

Underwater Pineapples

Pineapple fish look very cool. Swimming bilbies like to chase them around.

Watercolor and heliotrope ink sketchy painting.

Everywhere There's Lots of Piggies

Some five-minute paintings of various pigs from Beatles songs. Top: I Am the Walrus; "See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly." That gray pig is a strange-looking one. Don't know how to draw guns so I didn't. Bottom left: The most obvious one, Piggies; "Clutching forks and knives, to eat their bacon." Also in his starched white shirt. Bottom right: Doesn't really count, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! It mentions a hogshead of real fire, which is a barrel of some kind I guess, but I made the hog going through a fiery ring. I like how the smoke came out.

Watercolor and ink.

I Was Leaping Through the Park One Day

Silky sifakas are some of the rarest mammals. I was reading an article about them and saw a photo of one leaping around. For some reason, I thought of someone jumping and clicking their heels. So, I made a happy lemur on his way to see his sweetheart. These lemurs can have pink spotted faces.

With a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose

A boar with some fire, the inaugural picture in my watercolor moleskine. I'm reluctant to draw in it because it feels like every picture must be a gem, since it's such a fancy sketchbook!

I don't think the glass slippers will fit

Giant Armadillo-rella is surprised by her Pink Fairy Armadillo Godmother. Correct scale, what's that? A small watercolor sketch to try to get the creative juices flowing again. I always end up putting too much detail when I try to draw cartoony animals that aren't easily recognizable.

Ruffed and Ready

Sketches of red ruffed lemurs at the zoo. Lemurs have such difficult faces to capture. I avoided this by doing quick scribbles because they moved around a lot. They spent most of the time grooming themselves and changing sunning positions.









These were done with a Japanese brushpen that turned out not to be waterproof, which I found after I started using watercolor over it.

New Year, New Banner

I've had the same banner art since 2009, so I painted a new one. I had the idea to make two animals who've given their lives for art. I painted the two on blue watercolor paper after inking them with purple. I ended up flipping them for the banner, which seemed to make the composition work better.

The Siberian weasel's tail fur is used to make fancy Kolinsky brushes. I decided to make them like cherubs or conquering angels. I also took a shortcut I saw in another classical painting of cherubs where each had only one wing. This makes for a more readable silhouette (and I didn't have to try to make even more tricky feathers!)

Oxgall liquid, made of bovine bile, is used to make paint flow and wash easier. This picture is heavily influenced by an ancient sculpture. Even though the jar of oxgall got reversed in the final picture, it's so small and blurred that it doesn't really matter.

Goodbye Old Year. Happy New Year!

Walking away from 2010 into 2011. Wishing everyone reading this a prosperous new year!

Ptarmigan, Winsor & Newton watercolors.

Hoppin' through the forest

 More snowy white forest animals. Fuzzy!

Arctically Speaking

Painting white animals is a challenge. You have to try to make the shadows look like shadows on white and not gray markings. This is a ptarmigan. I love their floofy feet! The scanner seems to have eaten some of the lighter blues. These are small paintings, about 2 or 3 inches across.

Here I was trying out a water-painting technique. It came out OK; at first it looked pretty bad, but I was able to salvage it. With watercolor, you really have to try hard to preserve your highlights in water. I put on a bunch of greenish blue/indigo stripes down first, then got a wet brush and pushed the paint around. Narwhals are fun, I wish I had a narwhal tusk!

Going Bump

Happy Halloween! Monsters have to be trained and cared for when they're not stalking you, you know. The scary one is kind of like a bat-dinosaur-boar. It was fun to do a bit of creature design. An inked sketch that I painted with watercolor.

EDIT: I found the scan of the ink-only version. I sort of like it better.

She thinks of him, and so she dresses in black.

It's become kind of a tradition for me to draw a picture of my little bilby character in a Halloween costume. This watercolor sketch is a very tiny painting of Pinki as Paul. This is why I don't draw her with shoes on -- look at how weird those Beatle boots look!

Up from the Depths

Another small watercolor sketch. I've frequently had images of big, dark shapes underwater where you don't know what kind of creature it is. In dreams, it's often been scary. I wanted to paint a more benevolent scene. This isn't any particular animal, just one that likes eating lilies.

The one that got away

This is a picture from my "watercolors of things that pop into my head, possibly to become more finished paintings some day" sketchbook. I had the idea of a large prehistoric deerlike creature with decorated arrows in its hide. Don't worry, it climbed up high and is going to be fine. Now with rudimentary background! I wish I had made his antlers much larger, like an Irish elk's.