illustration friday: farewell

This is Pancake. He loves breakfast and math. He doesn't want you to leave yet, even though the bus is coming. Pancake has trouble with goodbyes.

This week's Illustration Friday submission is brought to you by the letter C for Corgi.

illustration friday: wild

A couple of weeks ago on my way to work, I passed this kid (well, basically) on his way to school. His mohawk hoodie made my day and really stuck with me, so when this week's Illustration Friday email came and I saw the that the theme was "wild," well, I took advantage of the opportunity to draw this little wild child.

Rock on, kid. You rule.

illustration friday: egg

It's not 9 pm on Thursday and I'm posting my IF illo! What is this topsy-turvy world? Is nothing sacred? Well, no. I guess not. In any case, here is a kid in a chicken suit. As you may be able to glean from the text beneath the drawing, there is a little story to go with this. It is very stupid and will never see the light of day, but it does exist.

I think this is the fourth or fifth little kid in a bird suit I've drawn over the course of my adult life. I guess I have some kind of deep-seated fascination with giant beaks on the verge of consuming childrens' faces? In a cuddly sort of way.

NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE. But I'm posting it anyway. Happy Wednesday, internet. Enjoy the chicken child.

illustration friday: swim

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do something for IF this week, which bummed me out because I already missed last week - but then I was able to churn this out this afternoon/evening, so yay! And I'm actually I'm super happy with it, which is always a plus.

This is a bit of a departure from the muted color palettes I've been favoring lately - the brighter, summery palette obviously worked with the theme, but it's also just because I am DYING for some warmer weather. I feel like I've been wearing a bulky winter coat for 100 years. Ugh. BRING IT SPRING.

illustration friday: yesterday

This is the second illustration I started for this week's IF topic, "yesterday." The first one was kind of personal (UNDERSTATEMENT) and super depressing and while I would like to finish it one day, I knew I couldn't now, and even if I did manage to, I was never going to post it. I got as far as a color comp before I abandoned it and decided to go with something a little less actively miserable.

The first thing that came to mind after that was the phrase "yesterday's news," which got me thinking about what if there was a little girl named Yesterday who put out her own newspaper and called it "Yesterday's News?" And she has a cat named Headline or Byline who "helps her," and by that I mean mostly rolls around in her notes but also sometimes discovers things or gets her out of jams too. And maybe they solve "mysteries" and uncover "secrets" around the neighborhood or whatever. Kind of like Harriet the Spy meets Nancy Drew, except with a super horrible name.

PSA: Do not name your child Yesterday. Do not name your child Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday (even if she's a vampire), Today, or Tomorrow, either. These are not names. Also a better, if less thematically appropriate, name for this cat would be Waffles. End PSA.

ANYWAY. There you go. I should just really stick to drawing.

illustration friday: talent

Nothing big for this week's IF, just another bendy circus lady, this time doing some double-hooping. I've been experimenting with color and technique a lot these last few weeks, and the streak continues. For this one I decided to work in Photoshop from start to finish (I usually work in Illustrator and then just take it into PS to add texture at the end) - and I didn't hate it as much as I expected. I kind of liked it, actually. I still think I prefer the results I get in AI - I like very smooth lines - but this method certainly had its merits and I'll try it again sometime.

I feel like I'm slowly figuring out how I want to work, through a series of hits and misses. Like, last week's piece? I hate it. A few weeks before that, for the "storm" prompt? I really liked that one. It's an interesting process.We'll see where I end up.

illustration friday: whisper

Getting my IF piece for the week in just under the wire - again. I see a pattern emerging. I actually did the sketch for this as soon as I got the email with this week's topic, it just took me a while to get around to finishing it. I'm still having lots of fun playing with color - this palette is a bit of a departure from the muted tones I've been favoring lately, but I felt like getting (slightly) outside of my comfort zone and trying out something that wasn't just strictly realistic in terms of coloring.

And I'm still all over hand-drawn text. I just want to draw pretty loopy writing all over everything now.