art fun with idioms, mimes, birds and cows

This past week has been filled with art and idioms.

To celebrate the first day of spring, I wondered what would happen if the early worm got the bird, and decided that would probably be big news:

The season might be only a week old, but the idiom art keeps coming.

For Colour Collective on Friday, the color was Blue Bell (like the flowers). That doesn't have anything to do with idioms, or mimes, but I decided to use both of those as inspiration for my image:

Read Between The Mimes! (I had to do it. Once I thought of the idea, it cracked me up.)

After the worm and the mimes, the word for Illustration Friday this week is umbrella (which makes sense, because it's spring and it keeps raining). I thought about drawing a rain filled umbrella scene, but then the idiom, "When it rains, it pours!" came into my head, which of course got changed into, "When it rains, cows soar!" And then I thought of Mary Poppins, and well, this happened:

It's a whole herd of the rare Mooey Poppins cows! (with apologies to Mary Poppins)

This will also be my art for Colour Collective this week (the color is Burnt Sienna, which I used on half of the umbrellas - the color looks a lot more red in the Colour Collective swatch than it does when I get it out of a tube of paint - was a perfect color for the umbrellas though).

Here's a close up of a few of the umbrella flying cows:

I've got a feeling it might be an idiom filled season. ;)

There were a couple of non-idiom art pieces this week too. I did two quick sketches for "holidays." (Note: there are holidays that are just a little odd and nobody really knows why they are holidays, but they're usually fun to celebrate and draw pictures for, so yay? these two images are for those type of holidays).

Holiday #1 National Poultry Day - a quick sketch of a character from a WIP:

Still working on her look. Will not be using these markers for the final art (I always forget I don't like these evil markers* until after I've used them - won't happen again ... until the next time I forget)!

Holiday #2 National Puppy Day - another quick sketch (but this time not with the evil markers*)

Happy Spring Everyone!

What's your favorite idiom?

* the markers aren't really evil - I just keep forgetting they don't work like paint, even though they have a brush tip - or maybe I just keep hoping that the markers will magically work like paint if I let them sit for a while - I am optimistic (though not about the markers)

Talk Like A Pirate Day / Talk Like A Cow Day

Yesterday was Talk Like A Pirate Day. Arr!

Did you celebrate?

What are your favorite pirate sayings?

It's always a fun day, whether you participate or just read/see/listen to what others are doing. In other years I've created art for it and wanted to make something fun again this year. I didn't have an idea before Talk Like A Pirate Day. Then I didn't have an idea for most of yesterday, until a cow (it's always a cow with me) and her parrot popped into my head. The idea for the image didn't come until I had the idea for a pirate saying. Talking like a pirate is not easy! This is the result:

If you missed Talk Like A Pirate Day yesterday, celebrate today instead! Or make today Talk Like A Cow Day - MOO!

Every day should be Talk Like A Cow Day.

How much fun would that be?

It would be hilari-moos!

Happy Talk Like A Cow Day!*

Moo!

*People make up holidays all the time. I make up cow-lidays. Moo!

p.s. I always like it when artists show part of their process, so here's the black line stage to show what it looked like before color was added:

Happy Talk Like A Cow Day! Are you celebrating? I am. MOO! ;)

a mermaid swimming in leaves and an ice cream loving elephant

Since the Illustration Friday prompt this week is: mermaid, and yesterday was the first day of Fall, I couldn't resist drawing a mermaid in a sea of leaves, reading a book. (Only black and white for now. I didn't have time to do color this week, but hoping to add color in the future.)

Did you know that Tuesday was Elephant Appreciation Day, and also Ice Cream Day? When I found out, I sketched this ice cream eating elephant and his two friends. (Only b/w for this one too, but thinking about adding color in the future.)

If I get a chance to add color to these two drawings, I'll come back and update the post.

Hippo Ship Hat - a.k.a. jagged for IF

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is jagged. For some reason, I decided to draw a hippo wearing a hat with a jagged edge. The first hat was more like a crown, but it didn't look quite right, so I re-imagined the hat as a ship on the ocean (no idea where that came from, but I liked the sketch so much I finished the art). Here's a close up of the hippo hat with the jagged edge:

Seagull says, "Aye! Aye! Captain Hippo!"

Here's the full image:

Originally, the picture was a daytime scene. I think I like it better at night, but I still like the daytime version too (though my file has a white background - Blogger made it grey for some reason):

What do you think? Daytime hippos? Nighttime hippos? Or it doesn't matter, as long as you can get a snazzy hippo ship hat too?

wishing for Halloween and pumpkin pie

Lots of wishes in this picture: the puppy is wishing that the pumpkin would magically turn into a pie, the ghost is wishing it was Halloween already, the cat is wishing the ghost wasn't real, and the bird is wishing that the cat, dog and ghost would go away already! The pumpkin isn't wishing for anything, because it's a pumpkin. (For #inktober and Illustration Friday).

I decided to participate in #inktober this year! Are you participating in #inktober?

Want to see my other inktober images? Click here to check them out.