a lizard wearing glasses, an old newspaper joke, and illustration Friday

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is eye glasses. I did several sketches before coming up with this drawing of a lizard and his friends all wearing glasses:

I drew the girl on the left first, not knowing what she was so surprised about. When I started to draw the boy, I knew there would be something or someone on his shoulder, but had no idea it was going to be a lizard! I decided that a lizard wearing glasses was funnier than a squirrel, so that's what I went with. The girl on the right was just an excuse to draw a profile with someone wearing glasses, but I think she fits in quite well with the other two. She's amused because she's the one that gave the lizard the glasses!

This is a different style for me. It looks similar to my regular style, but the line is a lot thinner. Here's a crop with just the black line so you can see what I mean:

I also made a version with a dark red background. Originally it was to make sure that everything was colored in without the background showing through, but then I really liked the way it looked. What do you think of the red background?

Couldn't help thinking of that old joke my dad used to tell: "What's black and white, and read all over? --- A Newspaper!" I didn't say it was a funny joke. When I was really little, I thought it was the color red, not read. I still think of that when I think of that joke, even though I know it's really read, not red ... probably because I'm an artist.

And here's the crop I put on the Illustration Friday site:

 I like it because it reminds me of a movie poster. It also shows how different an image can look and feel just by how you crop it. Now I want to go see a movie! I'll have to check the newspaper to see what's playing ... I'll probably check it online, since we only get the Sunday paper these days. If our newspaper had comics, we'd probably still get it every day.