Merry Monotreme

In a bit of an uninspired mood. Here's a pinto platypus. A very happy one.

Horse horns

Doodling unicorns again. Then came the elusive bicorn!

Some curved horns on this one. This is the heaviest horse I've ever drawn. I'm liking the beard.

An unfinished classic unicorn, and then, could it be a tricorn? Yow!

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!

Stole'n, with a stone-cold fox!

Why was this fashionable again? Ladies who wouldn't dream of even admitting that creatures could be deceased had them draped right by their faces, feet and tails and shrivelled noses and ears and all.

Ink smudged with a water brush. Boring fact: I was into fashion illustration for a while as a child. I designed some weird and ugly clothes! I still can't draw lace.

What Big Stripes You Have

Inattentive Little Red Riding Bilby stumbles upon the Big Bad Tasmanian Wolf (AKA thylacine). Another small sketchbook marsupial doodle. What a big head you have, Grandma!

The Devil you say!

Noodling around, looking for new and improved ways to draw Tasmanian devils. Did not achieve.

Here are some strange and nautical ones. They have weird flat heads and their eyes seem to be lower than their noses.

This is a bonus bilby with a pet cloud. Whatever, 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.

Dinos of a Feather

I like drawing dinosaurs, though I don't do it very much because I'm not very good at dino anatomy. I was watching a show about them the other night while falling asleep. Scientists were talking about feathers, and I might have misunderstood in my half-awake state, but I had the idea that most dinosaurs had feathers. So I doodled up some.

This raptory thing was inspired by the hilarious displays of some birds. You know the ones they always put on the nature shows, with funny music as they wave their wings back and forth. He has curly feathers on his head to display too (not hair!) and floofy legs.

Duck-billed dinosaurs are my favorites. This one is more like a condor or even ostrich though. Movies and shows always have dinosaurs roaring, but what if they made more bird-like sounds?

This makes no sense. A triceratops with a ruff of feathers around its neck, and some sticking out of the frill. Kind of like secretary bird head feathers. Don't ask me where they're inserted, I don't know. Must study dinosaur bodies again. 

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.

Re-introducing Folderol!

I've decided to call the sporadic dumb little comics I make "Folderol", which means "trivial or nonsensical fuss", because I make them about things that don't really matter. Time for Episode 2, once again inspired by real-life events. Kids really need a bit more explanation before their teachers send them off to do their yearly science projects.

(This is a real experiment someone really came in to ask where our books about it were.)

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.

Ex Libris

I like books. I like fancy bookplates. I like bilbies. I made myself a bookplate with a bilby on it to stick in my books.

I drew the picture with my crowquill and ink, then colored it blue digitally and added the border and lettering. I found a fun map font with flourished letters. Now I can't bring myself to stick them into any new books.

Goodbye Old Year. Happy New Year!

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

Ptarmigan, Winsor & Newton watercolors.

Merry Christmas!

And a quetzal in a pear treeeee!!!!

3-Minute Comic Theatre

A very fast comic about life's little irritations. I have a blanket with yarny tassels hanging down on both ends; I guess it's supposed to be decorative rather than used to cover yourself. And I do like bugs, but I still have that human reflex to flip out if I think one is sliding down my philtrum.

Populating Boot Hill

Another late-night doodle idea was a Grim Reaper from the Old West. This is the sketchbook scribble. It made sense to me but it looks pretty strange now. They had scythes then too of course but I thought he'd be more at home with a giant Bowie knife. And a little scorpion buddy.

I love doing research of clothes from past eras. I used a few period photos, but somehow he doesn't look very Western. Though a lot of the pictures of famous outlaws have them dressed in more formal clothes than cowboy stuff. Surprisingly, the final is very similar in pose to the skeletal (ha ha!) sketch. I inked and painted it in sepia tones to capture that old photograph look. That is one big and crooked knife!

B&W Birds

Some more birds drawn with my crowquill. The laughing thrush has the coolest 'do. I wanted to draw some that had large areas of black and white. These are really cute birds.

White-plumed antbirds (my book is old and has outdated names) have great tufts in front of their eyes. I wonder how they see.

The quick brown fox just became the lazy dog

I have sketchbooks near my bed for picture ideas that pop in to my head in the strange times when I'm almost asleep. The other night I had a vision of foxes being miniaturized and pet-ified.

We could end up with Pomeranian-type foxes, tiny and floofy with curled tails. Or maybe a teacup fox, with Chihuahua head.

How about sweater foxes? Or, similar to what happened with those foxes in Russia bred for their fur, ones with dog-like spotting. Fox terrier, indeed!

Another fox on a leash, this time with harness. The last is a weird long-haired, flop-eared variety.

Hoppin' through the forest

 More snowy white forest animals. Fuzzy!

Now You're Takin!

Scribbley time! These are some doodles with my purple pencil. Takins are very cute and fuzzy. I would like to pet one.

A dumb drawing of a lion that's been interrupted from his shower by the phone (yeah, that's a phone he's holding). Lion styles are difficult if you don't want them to look like Simbas.

A rolly bear. A bear-rel roll! With a giant head and big long arms! Oh bears, with their pointy lips and fuzzy ears.