Ducks and butterflies

I am still going strong with my pottery painting kick and somewhat surprisingly finding a measure of success with it.

I had a lot of fun this week combining illustration and pottery design for a very sweet custom order. The husband ordered this pair of matching mugs for his wife of 20 years. The direction I got is that he should be the duck and she the butterfly and they should show a connection to each other.

Here is what I came up with. What do you think?

IF - Surprise... oops I meant Secret

Ellie was surprised to find such a willing dance partner in Mr. Fluffington.

This topic gave me the push to try this old sketch out in watercolor. It looks better than it did in its digital incarnation but I am still not 100% happy with it.

Edited to add - I just got some time to look through the other IF entries and realized that the topic this week is not "surprise" but "secret." Oops...  Maybe Ellie and her cat are sharing a secret before their performance?

IF - Hurry!

Hurry Little Elephant or Miss Butterfly is going to be late for her party!

IF - Faded

 

When she saw the cupcake tray, her resolve to forgo desert faded into nothing.

Only time for a quick sketch this week, drawn ironically while I waited for my husband to come out of oral surgery.

Illustration Friday - Kernel

This chipmunk might have gotten the nut but he will have to work hard to get at the kernel.

A fun topic for Illustration Friday this week :)

Jumping in puddles

I used to love doing this as a kid :) So many puddles and not a parent in sight :)

Jumping into Mommy's Arms

Mommy's arms are the best and the safest place to be...

There is no new prompt for Illustration Friday today, and I think jumping into mommy's arms fits well with last week's word "Jump" so I am going to submit another entry :)

I appreciate and read each and every comment and would love to hear what you think!

Illustration Friday - Jump

 

Jumping for joy.

I decided to just keep it light and quick today :)

Illustration Friday - Heights

There is nothing like free-falling to experience the true majesty and exhilaration of heights.

I love that I got to relieve a great moment in my life while working on this week's Illustration Friday topic - heights. Unfortunately this was not my most successful effort. I couldn't quite get the feel of height here. In retrospect, maybe I should have made the ground look like a patchwork of squares (thanks to one of my facebook fans for the suggestion!), or place the line of the horizon lower on the page. I also think that I lost something in the final version compared to the original sketch:

The bunny especially has a more carefree, open expression here. I lost it when I tried making the snout (Do bunnies even have snouts? What do they have?) more defined. Oh well. That's how we learn.

Illustration Friday - Puzzled

The bunny was puzzled by acupuncture but trusted her friend the hedgehog and was willing to give it a shot.

Illustration Friday - Vocal

This hippo is very vocal about enjoying his bath.

I usually try to come up with a piece specifically for the IF topic but this week is proving to be too hectic. This is a quick sketch I just did inspired by a children's poem (in Russian) http://elenat.livejournal.com/153955.html. It wasn't intended for IF per se, but seems to fit, I think.

Illustration Friday - Return (2)

We will build a plane and soar
Over woodland, sea and shore,
Over woodland, sea and shore,
And return to Mom once more.


Agnia Barto, translated from Russian by I. Zheleznova

I love that this week's IF topic is so open ended. Agnia Barto is one of my absolute favorite Russian children's poets so it was a great opportunity to illustrate one of her nursery rhymes. I have to admit that growing up with her books, the illustrations  become as ingrained in you as the poems themselves so the composition of this piece was heavily influenced by the Russian illustrator Svetlana Borisova.

Illustration Friday - Return

Special Delivery - Returns are NOT accepted.

I am dedicating this to 3 very special moms:

I - who gave birth to her second little boy 11 weeks ago and inspired the original sketch for this.
K - whose little boy is due to arrive in a little over a month
and last but certainly not least
A - whose little boy is celebrating his first birthday today! Happy Birthday M!

Ballet Partners

My sketches tend to turn out a lot better than my finished pieces. Somehow I always manage to lose the movement and the depth somewhere between the sketch and the final color version regardless of the color medium I choose to work with. I am particularly happy with both the idea for this piece and the way the sketch turned out so I wanted to post it here before I went ahead and ruined it. Practice makes perfect and I will post the final version when I am done even if doesn't live up to the sketch's potential.

Tiny Ballerinas

Life inspires art and my little girls inspire me :-)

The paper is a too big for my scanner and I feel the original had a bit more air on the left making for a better composition. I might try to rescan tomorrow but it's going on midnight here and I don't want to risk waking up my muses.

Illustration Friday - Swamp

The Dragonfly fairy made the swamp her home. Every morning she chose a new leaf from the most beautiful plant in the swamp to serve as her wand. Froggy was her trusted companion and had magical powers of his own - he could sing all the baby animals that lived in the swamp to sleep. The momma animals loved the Dragonfly fairy and Froggy and always made special treats for them: Water Lilly nectar for the fairy and mosquito pops for Froggy.

I have to admit that this week's Illustration Friday prompt gave me pause. The first thing that popped into my mind is the Swamp Creature but I just couldn't visualize it in my mind. I wanted to do Swamped in the Swamp with the Swamp thing holding a little swamp baby and with another baby and household items floating around her. The problem was the swamp thing kept coming out looking like me except with a greenish tint which didn't do my complexion any favors. So I decided to call on the help of the Dragon Fairy to come and rescue me and as a thank you painted her portrait. I hope she likes it and I hope you do too.

Mr Pig enjoying the rain

I feel like I've really been on an umbrella kick lately. It's been raining off and on here so that might explain it. This pig seems to be enjoying himself though...

Illustration Friday - Shades

This penguin escaped the cold, put on his shades, and is enjoying the sun from the shade of his umbrella.

There once lived a bunny...

And he had a wooden "izbushka".

There is a lovely Russian folk tale about a bunny who lived in a wooden cabin, and a fox that lived in an ice one and what happened when winter ended. This is the bunny snug and happy in his cabin.

Illustration Friday - Yield

Who will yield first?