Scribbles & Scribings

I missed out on “expired” for last week’s Illustration Friday, but this week it was actually my day job that came to the “rescue” with this illustration of a cowboy riding to the rescue.   This is a work-in-progress for an event poster which is allowing me a rare bit of illustration fun, and a bit of a digression from my usual style. I hope they keep this design, which will have a retro movie-poster vibe, instead of going with the fall-back, which is a much “safer” but more boring design with pretty landscape photography.

This illustration was based on a stock photo we’d bought, although I had to add in a lot of details, including redrawing the horse’s head, which was at an odd angle. This is the unretouched artwork, which was reverse-painted with acrylic paints on acetate and scanned with a black sheet behind it, about 11×17 inches.

I needed a “rescue” this week, as I spent half the weekend with a sore jaw (aftermath of a root canal) and didn’t get nearly as much done as I’d wanted. But I did have a chance to start researching my next personal project, which I’m looking forward to sharing in the next few months.

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With such a deeply evocative word for Illustration Friday this week, and feeling bad about missing last week’s word, I spent a little extra time to play with my watercolors. It’s been way too long since I splashed around with real paint…. ahhhhh. I’m also clearly feeling the spring, as the bulbs in my garden are already popping up all over. So much energy goes on underground before we see those tiny green shoots….

I’m not quite sure if I’m completely done with it, but here it is.  Micron pen and watercolor on 140lb Canson watercolor paper, 9×12 inches.

For those who are interested, RedBubble has recently introduced some new products to their lineup: Greeting cards in two sizes, postcards, and the option to print images on the backs of shirts instead of the front… with the promise of more to come.  So far everything I’ve ordered from them has been gorgeous, and they have some of the nicest T-shirts out there. Check out the offerings in my RedBubble Gallery and see if anything catches your eye!

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This week’s sketch for Illustration Friday is a relatively quick ink drawing based on a photograph generously offered for use by a lovely lady from a RedBubble group devoted to portraits of fellow members.  I chose this particular image because not only is it a very sassy pose, but for the practice in drawing the human figure in extreme perspective — always a challenge! This image can be seen a bit larger in my RedBubble gallery.

Not much else to say this week except to let everyone out there know that Zazzle is having another sale! This week, through March 8, they are offering $4 off all t-shirts and other apparel items — including baby clothes and sweatshirts — with the coupon code 4OFFPATTYTEE

Here are a few suggestions from my Critterwings shop, although you can also customize your very own shirt too.