Illustration Friday - Subtract

Four chickadees subtract one chickadee leaves three chickadees.













I wanted to give this an almost woodblock feel. I did a quick sketch and scanned it into Photoshop. I'm not entirely pleased with it, particularly the cat, but there it is anyway.

Illustration Friday - Legendary

I was fooling around combining some of my pen and ink wildlife drawings with funky graphic backgrounds and came up with this combination that reminded me of some sort of legendary glam/psychedelic band for the birds, complete with the lead singer out in front strutting his stuff.

Illustration Friday - Intricate

I heard my first American robins of the season chirping on Thursday (just before a snowstorm blew into the valley, of course) so I've had the species on my mind. I wish I could say that I saw this nesting robin this weekend, but no such luck. This is from a trip to an Audubon site in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho two springs ago. The robin had built such an intricate nest of twigs, grasses and mud, all interwoven around some branches of a hawthorne sapling. I have no idea if it thought the thorns might give it some protection or not, but it seemed like a good set up.

I did this quick pencil and watercolor sketch from a photograph I took that day. Madeleine helped with the sketch immensely; inspecting the watercolor water, checking out the eraser, walking over the sketch to make sure the watercolor paint was dry (luckily it was). What would I do without her?













I've been feeling a little over-extended and run down lately, so I wasn't sure I was even going to get an Illustration Friday entry up this week. My better half was at a conference this weekend, so I planned a much needed personal retreat for myself. Except for running a few necessary errands on Saturday morning, I devoted my time to only doing what I felt like doing. I indulged in a massage, cooked myself a very healthy and delicious dinner - balancing that out by baking a chocolate torte as well - did some yoga, sketched, curled up with a cup of almond tea and finally watched "The Science of Sleep" (a quirky, romantic French film that totally spoke to my inner child) and just generally recharged my batteries. Not only did it inspire me to go ahead and tackle IF, but I feel like I can face another week now too!

Illustration Friday - Instinct

Recently I started sketching at work during my all-too-brief lunch breaks and I've been wanting to post these daily sketches on my blog. I had determined that today would be the day I posted my first daily sketch, but of course I chose too complex a subject and didn't finish, so I had to figure something else out.

Our cat, like all cats, instinctively searches out warm places to take a nap. This evening was laundry time and the bag full of hot laundry fresh from the dryer suited her just fine. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for today's sketch. (No, sorry, I'm not going to give in and say a "purrfect" opportunity. It's been done.)

She's usually a pretty good model but there were some noises outside that were distracting her and she kept moving her ears or picking her head up, but I managed to get this quick sketch done before she shifted positions completely.

So I'm delighted to be able to present both my Illustration Friday piece and introduce my first daily sketch all in one.

Illustration Friday - Time

Copyright 2009 The Farmer's Wife.

It's Bath-Time!

I won't have a lot of TIME this week to work on a new illustration for IF, but the freelance project I have to work on fits the theme so why not make it do double duty! This is an illustration for a soap label I'm designing for The Farmer's Wife , a company that makes all-natural, handcrafted soaps. Every year they introduce a couple of new soaps and I get the fun of designing and illustrating the new labels! This one is for a new addition to their line of wildlife soaps: Howlin' Wolf Soap. The illustrations are painted in acrylic on medium-grit sandpaper which gives the paintings a wonderful softness and - since you really can't see it on the Web you'll have to trust me on this one - a kind of glow from the sandpaper particles catching the light through the thin layers of paint. The sandpaper is a little rough on my paintbrushes, but I love the results. However, I've had the rubber ducky song from Sesame Street stuck in my head all weekend...