Illustration Friday - Warning

Don't Eat Me!

ATC 2.5 x 3.5 inches

mixed media

Vocabulary word of the day:  Aposematism - a visual warning signal (usually bright color or high contrast pattern) indicating that an organism has a secondary defense mechanism such as; unpalatabilty,  poisonous glands, stings, neurotoxins, or foul odor.

Illustration Friday - Artificial

Venus

3.5 x 2.5 inches ATC

colored pencil on toned paper

Some of the synonyms for artificial are: man-made, artful, cunning, imitation, sham.  Man has been imitating nature for a very long time.....

Illustration Friday - Ripple

 

A Spoonful of Tragedy - A Louisiana Roseate Spoonbill

2.5 x 3.5

mixed media

The folks at Illustration Friday are doing something meaningful this week.  Penelope Dullaghan has chosen the word "ripple" for this weeks theme.  She is encouraging all participants to submit and donate an ATC sized sketch card to a special project that is  raising funds to help wildlife injured by the Deep Water Horizon, Gulf of Mexico oil spill.  This project is being organized by  Kelly Light at http://ripplesketches.blogspot.com/ .  For a $10 donation you will be able to find this as well as many other original and digital artworks available.  This particular card will be sent directly from me to the purchaser when Kelly receives confirmation of a donation made to either the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies or  The International Bird Rescue Research Center .

I hope everyone who sees this blog will consider helping out by either making a donation or creating and submitting artwork to Kelly.  We all use oil.  We drive our cars, we heat our homes, we use tons of plastics and other petroleum products.  We are all responsible for this tragedy.  Perhaps this will be the thing that will help us finally decide to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels.  There are other clean options available, we just need to be willing to change.   True, it will be expensive.  It will be painful to those who need to find jobs in other industries.   But we will come to a point when we cannot afford the consequences of failure to change.  In the meantime, let's clean up this mess as best we can and save as much of our precious wildlife as is humanly possible.

By the way, the coastal marsh dwelling Roseate Spoonbill was just beginning to make a strong recovery from endangerment.  Most of this recovery was occurring in Louisiana....

Illustration Friday - Equipment

The Fig Leaf Campaign

ATC 2.5 x 3.5 inches

colored pencil 

I have to lay blame/give credit to my husband for my interpretation of this weeks word.  He has a habit of referring to male anatomy as "equipment."  So, in order to keep my blog (cough) "school appropriate" I thought I would touch on a bit of art history associated with the topic of male anatomy and censorship.

The addition of fig leaves to anatomically complete nude sculptures began in the mid 16th century as a reaction to Michelangelo's David and the Sistine Chapel Frescos.  A man by the name of Cardinal Carafa, led the campaign to cover nude figures in paintings and sculptures with a fig leaf.  An apron of fig leaves was the biblical symbolic clothing of Adam when he first recognized his own nakedness in the book of Genesis.  Unfortunately hundreds if not thousands of works of art were permanently damaged in the process of removing the offending appendages and covering the wounded artwork with plaster or bronze fig leaves.  

Amazingly many sculptures have since been reunited with their original  "equipment".

Illustration Friday - Propagate

 

Chia Todd

colored pencil on green paper

2.5 x 3.5 inches ATC

OK this weeks word was a tough one.  I think my resulting image betrays my usually disguised weirdo side, but here it is anyway.  This was inspired by my son's decision to allow his Ag teacher to shave his head last week with a pair of sheep sheers.  It has taken some getting used to and I think this is my subconscious way of saying that I prefer my son with at least some hair on his still young head.  I am including an image of the freshly mowed head below.

 

Illustration Friday - Adrift

 

Wilson!!!!

2.5 x 3.5 inches ATC

marker, colored pencil, and gel pen

available for trade

You know you are watching a really good actor when he makes you want to cry over the loss of a soccer ball. :)  I love Tom Hanks!  This is actually a requested image for my son Todd.  I told him what this week's Illustration Friday theme is, and he suggested this scene from the movie Cast Away.  To work up to it, we watched the movie together.   It was a nice way to spend our President's Day holiday together. 

Illustration Friday - Muddy

 

2.5 x 3.5 inches ATC

The Potter

Life like art is messy.  Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty.

Sculpture and ceramics was my emphasis in college.  I really love 3D work even though most of my art these days is 2D.  In ceramics I considered myself more of a hand builder.  I could throw a decent pot but I never felt I had a flair for refined form on the wheel.  The best thing about it was getting good and sloppy muddy.  I loved being in my paint stained and clay covered overalls.  I felt like a real artist.  I am a much cleaner artist now that I have to make art in more professional "teacher clothes", but a good dirty apron still helps me feel free and creative.

Illustration Friday - Pioneer

The Railway Man

This is a little ATC I made today for a lady in Finland who collects cards related to steam trains and the men who work the railroads.  It got me to thinking about how the world was changed by these pioneers of travel and commerce.  Certainly here in the US we attribute the true opening of the West to the railroads.  It is a part of our elementary education.  I have been fascinated by trains, like most people, since childhood.   Cabooses were still in use when I was young, and we would always try to get the "caboose man" to blow his whistle for us as the train passed by.   I miss cabooses.  As a young adult I actually bought myself a miniature passenger train set that I still have some 20 years later.  Did I ever mention that I was something of a tomboy? :)

Illustration Friday - Entangled

Come Back to Bed

2.5 x 3.5 inches ATC

mixed media

I really like this weeks theme word, it is full of all kinds of possibilities.  The resulting illos I see going up on IF are wonderful overall.   The theme brings to mind the entanglement of our personal relationships for me.  Perhaps the holidays are also responsible for putting me in this mindset.  I made this ATC for a personal trade with a lady who likes to collect cards themed with a mermaid and an octopus as a couple.  Entanglement is a given for these two. 

Illustration Friday -Blur

Mixed Media 3.5 x 2.5 ATC

I love the soft blur caused by falling snow.  This little ATC was inspired by a poem by Robert Frost.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Illustration Friday - Skinny or A Peace Crane Project Update

mixed media ATCs

Dancing Japanese Cranes

I came close to not getting this week done in time again.  The word "skinny" can be a touchy word especially for women.  So about 4:00 AM this morning I finally settled on doing a series of ATCs with some skinny birds that would also allow me to give an update on my origami peace crane project that I am spearheading at school.  We currently have about 588 cranes produced by students, teachers and a few community members at large.  We are a little over half way done with folding and I would like to have the installation hung by early December.  It seems a fitting theme for the upcoming holiday season.  If you would like to know more about this project you can see the entry on my blog at http://msartlady.blogspot.com/2009/10/illustration-friday-pattern-or-put-up.html .   Oh and by the way, these cards are available for trade for comparable hand drawn or painted cards. Show me what cha got. :)

The Owl and the Pussy Cat

2.5 x 3.5 inches ATC

mixed media

The Owl and the Pussycat

by Edward Lear

 The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are, you are, you are,
What a beautiful Pussy you are."

Pussy said to the Owl "You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing.
O let us be married, too long we have tarried;
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling your ring?"
 Said the Piggy, "I will"
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon.
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand.
They danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Annabel Lee

Colored Pencil on Bristol

made for a poetry swap on Illustrated ATCs

ANNABEL LEE

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me
Yes! that was the reason
(as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Illustration Friday - Frozen

Frozen Embryo

2.5 x 3.5 inches ATC

watercolor and colored pencil

I had nearly given up on participating in Illustration Friday this week.  I was feeling utterly uninspired and I didn't want to submit something that seemed  like simply another version of what a lot of other people had already done better.  But.... as luck would have it, inspiration hit me just as I was going to bed last night.  Frozen embryos are typically found in the form of an 8 celled blastosphere, similar to what's in the upper right hand corner, but I wondered what the little guy might look like if he were just a little more developed.  If frozen embryos all looked like this I wonder if science would handle them any differently?

I'm not making any political statements, nor taking a stance on one platform or another.  It's just an interesting thing to think about.  What does it mean to be human?  If you are frozen, and in an early developmental stage, have you become human yet, or are you still waiting?

More trading cards

ColourLovers Challenge "Japan"

These are cards made for a group swap where swap members had to work from the same limited color pallet.  The name of the pallet for my group was Japan, so I used that as a theme for my images.  It could have been anything though.  Color was the only restriction.

Chimerical Critters ATC Swap

 

 

 

  

  

Finally, I have finished the cards for the Chimerical Critter swap on Illustrated ATCs group site.  There were some interesting request.  Here is the list of combinations:

1. Unicorn - lady bug - tiger

2.Anteater - Reindeer - Bumblebee

3. Tiger - Monarch Butterfly - Lion fish

4. House cat - Ringtailed Lemur

5. Painted Lady Butterfly - Orchid - Birch tree

6. Kiwi bird - Lemur

It was a fun exercise and I can't wait to get my Toubsters in November