Scribbles & Scribings

 
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I’m still hard at work on a last “winter” project for the season, a companion piece to the Dragon of Autumn. I posted the scanned ink drawing a few posts ago, and here’s the colored version. My poor hand was a bit cramped after all of these snowflakes! But they’re only one small part of the whole project. I’m currently much further along than this, but I don’t want to post any “spoilers” just yet.

I’ve been really enjoying my new computer… working on the Dragon of Autumn was painfully slow, with files taking up to 20 minutes to save, even with separate elements like the frame and textures in separate files to keep the file sizes as small as possible. Now I’m working on an even larger file and there’s almost no lag at all. Ahhh, so nice! Now the only thing slowing me down is everything else in my schedule! But I hope to finish this one by next week, so I can turn my thoughts to warm, sunny, springtime…

 
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This week’s Illustration Friday is straight from the sketchbook. When I think of something that propagates like mad, I think of rabbits! But that’s not the only reason I’m posting this one.

This week I was going through all of my bunny references trying to brainstorm on fun Easter ideas. I usually try to have some idea of what I want before I start looking for reference material, but when I’m stuck for a concept I just try to find as many images I can and start doodling, hoping that propagating familiarity with the subject matter will spark some greater idea. Occasionally something comes out in this stage that makes it wholesale into the finished illustration, but more often it’s just a seed of an idea and at the very least it’s good practice for the anatomy. Still not sure if I stumbled across a winner yet, I’ll have to keep sketching…

In the meantime, if you want to see one of my finished rabbits, he’s lurking in my online shops:

 Prints, cards and shirts at RedBubble

Ornaments, keepsake, boxes, pillows, water bottles, and more at CafePress

Shirts, magnets, keychains, postage stamps  and more at Zazzle

SALE: Zazzle is having a sale this week: 22% off two or more mug, apparel, or hat items if you use the code TWOTWENTYTWO at checkout, whether you’re buying from me, someone else, or making your own custom items!

 
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This week’s entry for Illustration Friday was a super-quick sketch based on a story concept I had a while back which I have yet to get to. It was drawn on regular-surface bristol paper with a Pitt brush pen, 9×12 inches.

And for the word “adrift” I really had to fight the temptation to do something about all the dang snow around here! I just wasn’t in a punny enough mood this week, I guess.

I’ve been going through my small-size bristol like crazy lately! This was my last sheet of 9×12, although I have some other types of paper in this size. The tip of the brush pen had gotten a little bit loose and blobby, but I thought it worked here since it’s a relatively rough drawing and the paper’s a little rougher than I’ve been using lately too. My wrist needed the change of pace after working on all those snowflakes, which were inked last week and which I’ve been coloring like mad ever since. Update on that little project to come soon!

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Like the rest of the Mid-Atlantic, this week our house was covered in an awful lot of the stuff pictured above. Fortunately, in between a LOT of shoveling and some neglected housework, I still had the energy to get caught up on some of my drawings. I guess there are some good things about being snowed in! The above is some of the artwork that will be used in the next piece in my “Dragons of the Year” series; go ahead, guess what season it’s for.

I’ve actually made a fair bit of progress, and I’ll be posting bits of it over the next couple of weeks until its finished. Right now I can’t wait to start working on “Spring!”

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For this week’s Illustration Friday I went pillaging my photos. I love to go to the zoo and I always take tons and tons of pictures to add to my reference file. When I saw this week’s word was “muddy” I immediately remembered a day where the rhinos were having a grand old time wallowing in their huge mud puddle. (On an unrelated note, I really need to get my files set up in some kind of catalogue that lets me filter on keywords… I’ve just been reluctant to spend the effort committing to a proprietary system that might not be cross-platform. Any suggestions?)

It further fit the theme this week to stick with a pencil drawing instead of breaking out the inks — it takes a fair amount of effort to make technical pens seem “muddy” and I’m still trying to keep these quick. The original was drawn with graphite pencil in my 9×10 inch sketchbook; it seemed appropriate to tint it a bit in Photoshop but it’s otherwise unretouched.

SALE at ZAZZLE: Monday February 8 - Tuesday February 9 at 6pm EST Zazzle is having a discount of 50% off of express shipping on all orders of $25 and up if you use the discount code ILOVEEXPRESS at checkout. Whether you want something from my Critterwings Shop or anything else Zazzle offers, check it out! 

 
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Cats have this habit of snapping into razor-sharp focus at the drop of a hat, ancient hunters’ instincts always at the ready. It doesn’t matter if the object of that focus is a live mouse or a scrap of paper or random dust motes, because just as quickly they snap back out of it again. This week’s Illustration Friday drawing for “focused” is our cat Tinkerbelle, who has a little kitten face but can be sooooo intense it’s a little unsettling.

Ironically, the primary source I used for reference is incredibly UNfocused.

Why is it that in all of my cats’ photos they either look annoyed or zoned out?   The sketch was drawn with a Pitt brush pen on regular-surface bristol paper, 9×12″

On an unrelated note, there’s a sale at my Zazzle store:  30% off cards, 20% off stickers, and 10% off mugs if you use the code ZAZZLEVDAY10 at checkout. I’ve been adding new items to the Chinese Zodiac line every week; if there’s something missing that you’d like, just let me know!

Make a personalized gift at Zazzle.