I really love drawing animals. When I’m stuck for ideas, I find some reference pictures and draw an animal.
And then…..and then I give them a coffee cup.
I don’t know why.
It just makes me happy.
So, here they are (most of them, anyway). I hope they make you happy too!
If you aren’t a coffee person, think of them as giant, steaming, mugs of tea.
Several of these are up on my Redbubble shop already–the rest are pending! I’m also hoping to get some of them as stickers for sale on my Etsy. But that’s a project I’m *just* beginning. Let me know in the comments which ones you think would be the best stickers.
What animals would you like to see cherishing a nice steaming cuppa?
Let me know what you think in the comments, and if you like, subscribe so you won’t miss any art, incredibly profound musings, or other treasures from the Raven’s Landing!
Remember that line from The Rescuers? “Faith is like a bluebird, you can’t catch it or buy it or wrap it up tight, but it’s there just the same making things turn out right.”
The Rescuers wasn’t my favorite movie mostly because I found Madam Medusa *very* scary, in a way that McLeach just wasn’t. Yet Rufus the Cat and his little bit of encouragement, as well as about a zillion other lines from the movie, are burned indelibly into my memory.
When people in my generation start losing their memories, they will probably still be able to quote movies.
I always preferred The Rescuers Down Under–I think I may have even seen it first–who knows, I was so little. I mean, Wilbur is fantastic, then of course there is the lovable Australian cast of creatures.
….oh yeah, and I painted a blue bird that I can’t look at without thinking of the Rescuers and subsequently Australia (which is so frighteningly on fire)…
The background is inktense, the bird itself is Daniel Smith watercolors, and the black tips on its wings are gouache. The eye, ever bright, is ink.
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I decided to investigate gauche. I was curious what made it different from watercolor, when most people say, “Oh, it’s like watercolors” when you ask what it is.
The binder is different than watercolor, so it’s just…different…more translucent? More…luminous.
tigre!
I borrowed some of my mother in law’s gauche, and I’ve been enjoying playing with it. Though, apparently it makes me want to paint tigers because that’s all I’ve done.
Yaaaaawn
I’m enjoying how different it is…and how the same. I’ve used the gauche for a base, and then finished the tigers with my brush pens to get really stark lines for the stripes. On the second tiger I also relied on masking fluid. Well….experimented with masking fluid.
I feel like masking fluid is a really interesting tool, and I’m enjoying messing around with it.
Oh, did you notice? I’m still trying to make a tiger half as awesome as my glamour leopard. I’m getting closer. Actually, both of these tigers came out pretty awesome, but are a different medium than the leopard so they still don’t go. I just forget about colored pencils. they still exist. I own them, even.
So how is everyone? September flashed past me at top speed. I cannoooooot believe October is this week.
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One would think that with Disney’s The Jungle Book being a
big part of my childhood, I might like tigers less. Shere Khan was only one of
the most scary villains—though, simultaneously one of the most…noble? Not that hunting
a child is noble, but his motivation was less self-serving than say, Scar’s. Actually,
come to think of it…big cats are these terrifying, massively dangerous wild
beasts…but it’s just hard not to like them.
Especially when big cats apparently have the same inability
to resist cardboard boxes that their domestic cousins have and they are also
openly fond of basking in the sun.
When I was a kid, I had this little plastic tiger cub who
was classically named—Stripe. My brother had the same tiger, except white, and
named Ghost Tiger—but we called him GT for short. Very creative names!
Tigers are very hard to paint, incidentally. I’ve really
struggled to capture their bone structure. For some reason the leopard comes
easier—perhaps because the leopard is more sleek?
I don’t have any childhood leopard memories, I think I might
have had a plastic leopard at one point, but it was not as important a toy as
Stripe.
I want to paint a series of big cats, glamourous big cats
like these—and also more comedic big cats. Big Cats in Little Boxes, sounds fun
and challenging!
Glamour Leopard is Glamorous
I have a hard time cartooning from scratch—but I’m trying to learn. I spent so much of my life wishing I could draw photo-realistic things that it’s been a huge mindset shift to accept that my strength lies elsewhere. It’s not that I can’t be photo-realistic, but the pieces that really shine with emotion and are fun to look at aren’t those. I’m better at whimsy, and better at evocative. And I’m finding that I like artwork that looks like art. Especially with so many amazing photographers out there, I don’t feel the need to duplicate their work, I’ll make it something new.
Both of these cats are done in colored pencil, over a watercolor background and inked blacks. They are both up in Redbubble, I haven’t put them in my Etsy shop yet, though. Do you think I should?
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I don’t know who started it, but I belong to a family of
birders. Compared to a truly avid birder, we aren’t, but compared to the folks
who aren’t sure what a robin is, we’re absolute bird nerds.
I think this is a wren. I should have written it down.
Growing up, we had a couple blue bird houses in back and a
hummingbird feeder hanging off the deck. But my grandparents maintained a
monstrous contraption of a bird feeder, with suet, thistle, sunflower, and
probably a couple other extensions. My grandfather had a longstanding contest
with the local squirrels, but unlike me he was actually pretty successful in
building baffles to keep the little moochers off. It wasn’t until recently that
the trees had gotten too big and too close, and the squirrels could just LEAP
directly onto the feeder.
But for years, the squirrels foraged under the feeder and
the birds fed at their appointed places and splashed in their heated (in
winter) birdbath.
My Grandparents received Birds and Blooms magazine, and whenever we arrived at their house for a visit I would immediately grab a magazine and flip through the pages looking at all the spectacular, brilliantly colored, photography. I never read the full length articles, just the short little blurbs and funny stories. But oh, those pictures.
Phone calls, letters, and conversation centered on the
happenings at the bird feeder—what notable bird visited, or the time the fox
came through with a half-eaten something in his mouth, or the day the hawk
visited and ALL THE BIRDS avoided the yard for hours. I imagine, if there were
a zoologist historian at some point in the future, they would like to have my
grandmother’s letters. But given that they are all written in cursive, they won’t
be able to read them.
The aviary is my favorite part of the zoo, and I always try
to stop and listen to the birds, even though I have only the barest grasp on
which birds I’m hearing. Now that I’m grown and have a house of my own, I have
a sunflower seed feeder.
I hang it off a tree branch I can reach from my deck, so I
had no illusions about keeping the squirrels off—though I do throw cups of
water at them sometimes when I feel like they’ve been on the feeder Every
Single Time I’ve been out there.
I don’t mind at all when the cardinal in the tree outside my
bedroom window scolds loudly because the feeder is empty. I love watching the
housefinches, chickadees and the occasional titmouse pigging out on the feeder.
Blue Jay (those Jays…)
After a lifetime of drawing horses, I was surprised to find an
affinity for birds. I really love painting birds, and half the time I really
love how the paintings come out. I attribute it to the hours and hours I spent
poring over Birds and Blooms, staring at breathtaking hummingbirds, titmice,
tanagers, orioles, chickadees, bluebirds (east and west), blue jays (east and
west)…of course, the more shy, insect eating birds I know essentially nothing
about (there are armies of wrens and warblers and sparrows that I’m only seeing
now because I have an uncle and an aunt who are Real Avid Birders with a Really
Nice Camera).
I’ve started to experiment with different looks and feels
for my bird paintings, and will probably start asking various wildlife and
raptor rehabilitation centers if they are interested in having a piece to auction.
What about you? Do you bird watch? Or are birds those mysterious avian monsters from that Hitchcock movie? Which of these birds did you like best and want to see in the Etsy shop? (The Blue Vireo is already there)
