Tyler Warren, Surfer and artist.

This looks like heaven to me.
So graceful and so mellow, some day that will be me hanging ten(toes) on my longboard in the sunshine.
Not someday soon, but someday!
Check out Tyler Warren's art as well.
It's as graceful as his surfing.

Drawing jam

This is the first time I've participated in the Drawing Jam over at the drawingboard.org.
It's a great idea, and I've been meaning to take part but kept forgetting about it.
Until today, I was reminded by a post on creative evolutions.
What happens in the drawing jam is that every month somebody posts up a few different photographs of the same model and everybody draws their version and shares.
So you get to see the same thing done in lots of different styles and techniques.
Pretty cool.
My attempt is done with pencil and watersoluble ink pencils and pen.
As is my wont, I didn't manage to fit her all on the page, sorry 'bout that Miranda!
Nor does it look like Miranda Kerr, but at least it looks like a person:)
Someone with a bit of a neck:)

Handmade watercolour sketchbook

I made a watercolour sketchbook today.
Thanks to Robyn over at have dogs,will travel
Who shared her own handmade sketchbook and the tutorial
on how to make it.
Which led me to Nina Johansson's own sketchbooks.
They're brilliant, do have a look.
I love the way she uses old leather bound books to bind her own sketchbooks.

Ringtailed Lemurs

Just a few sketches I did today in my new Moleskine journal.
It's 19x25cm, a good sized page, and floppy and slim like your old school copy books.
The pages are the same glorious smooth cream paper that they have in the notebooks except that it is very light, very thin paper.
But oh so lovely to work with and fine for pencil sketches.
Nothing like a new sketch book and a couple of lemurs to get the creative juices going:)

Happy Easter Eggs

"Whadaya mean did I really get an easter egg, Dan it was this big I'm tellin' ya."


"Oh man Larry, I'd have settled for one this size just so's I could say I got one from the bunny too."

Larry took great delight in teasing poor old Dan who really wasn't the sharpest tool in the box!
Hope you all got your eggs though:)

I spliced these two guys together from photos I took at Fota wildlife park last week.
It's actually the one lemur posing for all four.

Tartan Trip

'Pet Peeves' is this weeks topic for Illustration Friday.
So continuing on in my pseudo 50's style we have Dora and her dog Hero.
Dora is on a tartan trip having just discovered that she has Scottish roots.
Hero is not impressed, in fact he's a pretty peeved pet right now.
Not only has she dressed him up in this ridiculous outfit but she also insists on calling him her Bonnie Prince Charlie, after some old Scottish dude!
And another of hero's pet peeves is Dora's smoking, no matter how you dress that up it's still a disgusting health hazard.
I should know I only quit three years ago.
And if I can quit then anybody can.

Christmas Crocuses!

Last Christmas I received a lovely gift of five crocus bulbs with their own special glass jars to grow them in.
I've really enjoyed watching their progress.
The growth of their roots which start out like lots of tiny tight curls and then slowly unfurl as a frizzy mop of hair.
Now I'm enjoying their beautiful flowers.


They belong to the Iris family.
Which isn't surprising considering their striking colour.
And unfortunately how they both come and go so quickly.



Last years Iris.

1950's chick

Dora's attempt at subtlety was as heavy handed as her eye-shadow!

Illustration Friday's Topic this week is 'Heavy'.
I'm enjoying looking at 50's graphics at the moment, and Dora is my attempt at a 50's chick.

Chasing rainbows

Happy Paddy's Day from the land of Leprechauns and rainbows.
Myself and and my love were up at the crackle of dawn chasing rainbows from one end of the green Isle to the other.
But that pot of gold is always just around the corner or over that hill, like Alice in Wonderland, "jam every other day, never jam today"
The very fact that there was a rainbow to follow at all was a prize in itself though, it meant that the sun was out and following us!

Poppy pods

Illustration Friday's topic this week is 'Garden'.
I've put up a watercolour I did of poppy pods and flowers.
I think I love the pods just as much as the flowers.
They are so sculpural and tough compared to the whimsical delicacy of their flowers.



These are a couple of photo-studies I took of pods that I collected the seeds from last year.
I must remember to scatter them soon for this years crop.
It's a very fine balance between dead heading to keep the plant flowering and knowing when to leave the pod so that the seeds have time to mature.
For example all my Sweet pea pods were either empty or rotten by the warm wet weather we had at the end of last autumn because I was too greedy for flowers and kept picking them:)

Japonica, Japanese Quince

I was out the other day taking photos of the daffodils, again, after the winter I was feeling starved of colour.
Anyway my neighbour kindly introduced me to her 'japonica' otherwise known as japanese Quince and I fell in love.
What a beautiful little tree (for some reason I hate the word shrub) ablaze with colour
when everything else looks half dead and frost bitten except for the darling daffodils of course.

Skinny dipping

Illustration Friday's topic is 'Leap'.

Suzy leaps out of her clothes and with a joyful holler leaps into the big blue.

I made somebody's day !

Cathy from musings at puflet palace a great blog with fabulous art and humor, has awarded me a "You make my day" badge which actually made my day!
Thanks cathy.
I'm going to pass it on to one of my favourite bloggers
bookbabie