floating heads

No internet via cable for several hours this morning. Suddenly I was isolated from the world!

Minor filler post, meanwhile: One way to cope with the constantly moving cat is to only do the head. (Working to keep the daily posts going.)

Tech pen, water-soluble pen, and w/c on hemp paper.

enjoy your grapes

The cork is thinner and longer than reality.

The point was to practice shading with hatching, which is so much harder that simple paint flow.

Tech pen and pastel on unknown paper.

peaceful for the moment

When the cats sit in the windows to feel the air and watch the action outside, they inevitably fight over the same sill.

For once, Fen won this round. Chaucer is pouting.

Tech pen in sketchbook

got mail?

Random little doodle of the mailbox. The side white box is for newspapers. It's a company-issued plastic that droops in multiple directions.

Tech pen and w/c on unknown paper. I cut rectangles of various papers and have them in a stack to grab for doodle urges.

symbolic bird

In my vague, occasional quest to be able to draw a representative animal without a reference, here's a somewhat robin-like bird. My colors.

Tech pen, w/c and pastel on Mudlark journal paper.

key splash

I have keys, lots of scannable store-tags, a teeny light, and a screwdriver on this keychain.

Tech pen and w/c on unknown paper.

emerging flight

Process:
swab w/c paper with water
drop on color with separate brushes
wait
spray paper with mister
wait
squint, turn image, look for shapes
stroke yellow on as filler
randomly draw squiggle lines
randomly draw lines along edges of color
finally see a bird-like form
outline a bit of it
Call it done

in memory

About 4 years after my mother died, we happened to be visiting one of her favorite places in Germany.

For us Oberammargau was a 20-minute tour bus stop with our traveling show of 35 high school students and 12 adults doing 5 countries in 10 days.

I raced into the gift shop and bought this wooden hippo because she would have loved it as a present.

Tech pen and w/c on Cachet sketchbook paper. The Chinese characters say "sunrise."

bagged

Scanning drawings in the spiralbound sketchbook usually means light leaks in around the spiral.

Ignore that upper left gray patch; it's not shading.

Tech pen and w/c on Super Aquabee deluxe.

3 candles

The candles are white in a clear holder, but that was my takeoff point.

I drew with a brush in blue, then went back to add more colors.

w/c on 140# watercolor paper

non-electric, all the way

I never understood the attraction of electric can openers.

A high-end handcrank works better, costs less to buy and run, stores more easily.

In a long power outage, you can still open cans of fruit stored for an emergency. Ask me how I know.

Tech pen and w/c on Mudlark journal paper. I just read the sticker on my journal, not Lulu at all.

head out of the sand

"Bird face" is what I put into Google images, looking for something interesting. I found this ostrich.

I don't understand his muzzle construction, but this is what the photo looked like to me.

Pencil and w/c pencil on Lulu journal paper."

hitchhiker

This was drawn as my hand rested on the table, but turned out so much like "thumbing a ride" that I had to rotate it for posting.

In drawings of my left hand, my angled little finger is always a memory of how I broke it.

Tech pen on Lulu journal paper with writing showing through.

"draw me" tree

I pulled into a parking space and saw this strange tree right in front of me. Had to draw it, then and there.

Process:Derwent Graphitints--left dry to keep detail--on SuperDeluxe Aquabee paper.

Happy May Day!