dogs in Hawaiian shirts, pugs in tulips, and hippos with tattoos and sunflowers

Today is a "Dogs In Hawaiian Shirts" kind of day. From the art archive:

Makes me want to break out my watercolors!*
(Update: Got out the watercolors! Two new paintings at the end of the post!)

Or maybe it's a "Hippo With A Tattoo" kind of day (also from the art archive and for the Illustration Friday prompt, tattoo):

Maybe those dogs are wearing Hawaiian shirts to hide their hippo tattoos!

Or maybe the hippo and the seagull have Hawaiian shirts, but took them off to go swimming!

So many possibilities!

That's how stories start, with a silly idea.  

(Or at least that's how my stories start. YMMV.)

What kind of day are you having?

* Couldn't resist pulling out the watercolors and painting! So much fun! Apparently it was a "Watercolor Painting" kind of day, inspired by the two images I posted above. :)

#1 - It was also a "Pug Puppies Tiptoeing (and bounding) Through The Tulips" kind of day:

I've never drawn pugs before (not even the year I drew a dog a day all year). Fun to try. Might do it again some time!

#2 - And a "Tiny Hippo Stops To Smell Giant Sunflower" kind of day:

Hope you have a wonderful and creative day, whatever kind of day it is for you! 

happy hippo day and hat for illustration friday

The Illustration Friday prompt this week is: hat. I was trying to figure out what to draw for IF while it was snowing today. At that point, it was a light snow, which made me think about people in New York who walk around with umbrellas when it's snowing, which made me think of people trying to share umbrellas ... which ended up with me drawing an elephant and a cow wearing hats and scarves, and sharing an umbrella in the snow:

BTW, did you know today is Hippo Day? Happy Hippo Day! And, as everyone knows, hippos love to wear hats! (I might have made that up, but it could totally be true.) Here are a couple of hippos with hats:

This hippo is celebrating with her birdie friend and a new tattoo!

The hippo on the left has a ship shaped hat. The hippo on the right is jealous. Here's a close up of the hippo's ship hat and the seagull on board, who is also wearing a hat:

Speaking of animals that like to wear hats, did you know that cats like to wear hats? Here's proof:

Did you think I was going to show The Cat In The Hat? Now that I think of it, I did draw a picture of The Cat In The Hat and his brother a while back:

Oh no!  The Cat In The Hat's brother has just eaten the fish! Do you think The Cat In The Hat can save the day? Or do you think the fish will save himself? (I'm betting on the fish.)

Happy Hippos Wearing Hats Day!
(And also not wearing hats.)

unusual holidays featuring: strawberries, seagulls, bears, turtles, and snails

This week I made more art for unusual holidays - and now it's been a whole month of every day holidays!*

Wednesday was Pick A Strawberry Day. My first thought was strawberries picking teams for a game, which is how this painting happened:

Thursday was Maritime Day, which was a good day for this seagull to give a salute:

This is part of a larger image. The hippo and the seagull on the right are jealous of the hat the hippo on the left is wearing (it's a Hippo-Ship Hat):

Friday was Waitstaff Day. This bear is a good waiter. He will NOT eat the pie before he serves it to the customer (maybe).

I didn't intend to put in the text or thought bubbles, so they didn't fit as well as they would have if I'd planned them. I still like it though, because the words being spontaneous is just like the bear's decision to eat the pie (or not). Here's a close up of the sign and the bear's thoughts:

Yesterday was World Turtle Day. I celebrated by drawing some turtle love (another paint test paper drawing):

Last, but not least, did you know that today is Tiara Day and also Escargot Day? I didn't either, but when I found out, I decided to draw this royal snail (more drawing on my paint test paper here):

Want to see more art for holidays you've probably never heard of? Please click here to see my art for unusual holidays so far.*

To learn more about my books or see my portfolio art, please visit my website, sruble.com.

*I'll continue to make holiday art, because it's fun and I've been doing it for a long time. I just won't be doing it every day.

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?