Small & Big

Sometimes it’s fun to feel squished. Purrrrrrr-mew. This is my answer to Illustration Friday’s ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate “Packed”. It’s more of a collage. It gots a big fat cut from my nifty new Dover book of old timey toys.

An homage to something or other. This is my answer to Illustration Friday’s ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate “Homage”. With three cuts from way nifty Briar Press .

(Click “the Snowdrop” below to see it full-size.) Last Friday’s Illustration Friday assignment was to illustrate the word “Blanket”. Given the wintryness outside my window, I'm picturing a cool blanket of white snow being poked through by flowers. Dainty spring buds are tough little buggers. My tulip ain’t technically a snowdrop—but then that white stuff’s not actually snow. Up for a read? Read the whole story at Hans Christian Andersen Center . And my answer to Illustration Friday’s ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate “Blanket”. Illustrations make use of a cut from Briar Press .

Feelin’ cosmic and story-fied today. Above is the collage I put together for the current assignment over at Illustration Friday (click it for a bigger view). It combines an ancient creation story and the Orion nebula, which is a good 1,500 light-years from Earth. In the night sky Orion is the brightest spot in the sword of the constellation Hunter. The bird knows. This is my answer to Illustration Friday’s ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate “Tales and Legends”. With help from a spectacular NASA image called Chaos at the Heart of Orion and two cuts from Briar Press . The text is adapted from an Aborigine creation story .

For this week’s Illustration Friday I gave 100 percents. This is my answer to Illustration Friday's ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate "100%".

Combine anything with its mirror opposite and a new whole emerges. Sometimes vaguely bird-like. This is my answer to Illustration Friday's ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate "Backwards". Briar Press worked backup for me.

Birdies, branches, the out-of-doors. A cozy home off in the distance. Fresh flowers, bright color, a cupcake silhouette. Little things are best. This is my answer to Illustration Friday's ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate "Little Things". With a wee, itty bitty, teensy weeny bit of help from a nifty little outfit called Briar Press .

There's only one animal at the zoo for me: the giraffe. Even after all these years it remains exotic. Other animals are commoners. I mean, I can imagine owning a pack of zebra horses. I'd hitch them to a cart and haul junkmail back from the mailbox. Elephants are smart, just like my neighbors with their double-wide garage. Snakes are giant earthworms, with fangs. But the giraffe! Now that's a unique beast. That endless neck, that loping gait, those handlebars. Besides admire it, what would a person do with a giraffe? Rent it out for necklace ads? I could never do that to somebody I look up to. This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate "The Zoo".

Click image above for larger view Somebunny lives forever. Magical! This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate "Trick Or Treat." Mine's both.

Click image above for larger view Honeybees today juggle lots of stuff: the latest disease, staying healthy amongst lawn and garden pesticides, and deciding which delicious flower nectar to suck up next. This little one here has been joyfully workin’ the flowers. Go, honeybee, go! This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate "Juggle". Check out other SMALL & big postings about bees: Bee School The Work Of The Honeybee

Click image above for larger view Whether it's a child's birthday party, a circus, or just for fun, wearing a two-person horse costume means someone has to be the back. Being a good neighbor means letting others go first sometimes. Wish I hadn't made their armsies, eyes, and ears white—color contrast is too great. Maybe I'll change it tomorrow. It's been a couple weeks since I last participated in IF. Feels good to be back. This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate "Neighbor".

Click image above for larger view So you want your fortune read, huh? Well, given the popularity of franchises such as The Home Depot and Lowe's Home Improvement, I've moved to the do-it-yourself model. It saves you big bucks and it saves me from potential lawsuits should you decide to deviate your life from this bonafide, unchangeable, 100% accurate fortune. Click the image above to see your fortune more clearly and to get instructions on how to intrepret it (you'll probably need to scroll to the right to see the whole shebang). Bring a solar-powered calculator, a basic understanding of icons and color theory, pretzels, a wool sweater, and for seeing into the future, a telescope. This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment, this time to illustrate "Fortune". Sorry if it turned out kind of snotty looking. I was trying for a humorous Monty Python angle but, now that it's posted it's, well, it's not so much. But what's do...

Mr. Coffee goes bad. Real bad. This mugshot shows he got himself into some hot water. His crime? All I can legally repeat is that it involves coffee, coffee, a mug collection with one too many Christmas motifs, and coffee. Notice that the martini olive has been cruelly stabbed. I didn't have time to break the wine bottle and turn it into a weapon so I just put a crack in it. Mr. Coffee's prisoner number translates as "coffee" (c=3, o=15, f=6, etc.) because "coffee cartel" takes too many numbers. This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment, this time to illustrate "Wired". Click it for a bigger version.

Maurice’s cunning helped him evade that hungry field sparrow, and in doing so he discovered something new: his special affinity for flowers. He decided to go for it. He attained his Master’s Degree in floral arrangement from Chicago School of Flower Design. Today Maurice owns and manages a successful retail floral operation behind the shed there, to the left of the plastic green leprechaun. This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday ( IF website ) assignment, this time to illustrate "Hide". Click it for a bigger version.

This is my drawing for this week's Illustration Friday's ( IF website ) assignment, this time to illustrate "Communication". Click it for a bigger version. What? Good and bad communication—it's all about the stuff inside. I'm learning that if the clerk behind the store counter is rude to me, it's because he's having a bad day (or a bad life). How I give out and receive back is about my outlook and health. (Hey, when the body's feeling good, it's easier for me to be nice to others. And myself.) Being aware and following this practice helps inoculate me against catching the "nasty virus": being nasty to others. Now, the "nice viruses", those I go out of my way to catch.

Animal Bones born gravity built pulled to earth and grown. Illustration Friday's ( IF website ) assignment to illustrate "Gravity".

My, who could have done such a dastardly deed? The world may never know. This is Illustration Friday's ( IF website ) weekly assignment, to illustrate "Crash".

Here’s my homework for the weekly illustration assignment from Illustration Friday ( IF website ). The assigment is to illustrate “Sprout”. I uploaded a much larger image but Blogger likes this better, I guess. While sketching fresh tendrils and other greenery I noticed how a flower atop its stem and a spider dangling from her web are made from the same basic shapes. A vertical line, an oval, and “sunshine marks” sprouting from the oval. The spider is an upside down flower. After saddling up the computer my noggin was on to how spiders and crabs are the same beast. Like if you dropped a spider into the sea she'd turn into a crab and a landlocked crab would evolve (devolve?) into a spider. This assignment sprouted ideas. And maybe a little romance, eh?

My first attempt at a weekly illustration assignment from Illustration Friday ( IF website ). The assigment is to illustrate “Red”. To really make a color stand out it’s good to use its opposite, in this case green. By the next illustration I hope to have it together enough to add some humor. On purpose.