dinosaurs rollerskating for illustration friday and colour collective

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is skate, and the color for Colour Collective this week was Ceylon Yellow. So of course I thought of a dinosaur rollerskating! Ended up doing two paintings (so far) and they are both still wet, which means I can't scan* them. Luckily, I can photograph them! Am experimenting with mixed media paintings, these are the first two.

In the first painting, a dinosaur taking a relaxing skate through town (well relaxing for the dinosaur, not so much for the people):

In the second painting, the dinosaur is skating out in the country. A child waves from the car going by (the parent driving is not as happy about the dinosaur as the child):

Thinking about doing a third image, where the dinosaur is skating much faster, maybe even racing someone or something. Or a dino who is not quite as steady on skates. Or maybe just a giant dino foot with skate picture. Hmm. Need to start sketching!

p.s. As you can see by the differences in the two pictures, I'm still developing the dino character.

*p.p.s. If I have time tomorrow, I will scan these pictures so they look better. 

you spin me round - spin for if and a recent graphic novel read

The Illustration Friday prompt this week is: spin. What do you think of when you hear the word spin? I thought of several things that spin, but two I couldn't get out of my mid were someone spinning on skated and a record (or these days, a CD). Once I thought about a record spinning, I thought of an 80's song by Dead Or Alive - You Spin Me Round (Like A Record).

I started sketching, and this happened:

Look, it's a girl on skates spinning round like a record (literally spinning on a record) and singing along with the Dead Or Alive song!

Recent Read* I loved - 
Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson - This seemed like the perfect book to go with my drawing this week. Astrid and Nicole have been best friends for most of their lives. They do everything together, or at least they did, until Astrid signs up for roller derby camp and Nicole goes to dance camp. Roller Girl is about growing up and growing apart, figuring out where you fit in, and navigating old and friendships. This graphic novel has a great middle grade voice in both the story and art. Crossing my fingers that author/artist Victoria Jamieson creates more graphic novels in the future! p.s. Happy to say that Roller Girl won a 2016 Newbery honor!
Graphic Novel:

* Note: Recent = books read the day of, the week before, or within the last year or so, but usually that month. Unless stated otherwise, all books were purchased by me, given to me as gifts by family or friends (not the authors or illustrators), or checked out of the library.

snowmen, sand people, zombies, and penguins for the new year

I'm not really a resolutions person. Sometimes when I start a new year, I look to the past to see what I've done, instead of thinking about what I need to do. Not just the last year, but other years as well. Sometimes this helps me to decide what I want to do in the future, especially when it comes to art.

In 2011, my blog post for the New Year featured zombie snowmen! Since I'm currently reading a zombie book, I thought about posting the zombie snowmen here again:

I painted this in December, 2010, and it turns out, I painted some other snowmen that year too. If you're not into zombies, maybe you'll like the one watching a penguin skate:

Or, maybe snow is too cold for you. If so, I have a solution. These snowmen aren't technically snowmen at all. They're sand people! And at least one of them is a sand woman.

It's a crop from a larger sand people painting I did as a blog header for WaWe (a watercolor site which no longer exists):

Then again, maybe you're not into snowmen at all and really prefer the penguin. In that case, how about a painting of a penguin and bear making snow angels from 2008?

All this reflecting and looking at art has made me realize that I really miss painting. It's been a while. It's also clear that I used to make more time for fun art (not for a project or book, but just because I wanted to make art).

Despite the fact that I'm not a resolutions kind of person, I do like to make goals (all year, not just in January). One of my goals for this year is to make more art for fun, and some of that art will be made with paint!

Do you make resolutions or goals to start the year?

Whether you make resolutions, or goals, or just wing it, I wish you a wonderful year full of amazing things (and no zombies)!

Winter Activities for WaWe and Phenomenon for IF

The prompt this week for Watercolor Wednesdays is Winter Activities. I painted this image at the beginning of the month for this prompt. Then I got an email from Illustration Friday with the prompt for this week, Phenomenon, which I thought also worked for this painting. It would be a big phenomenon if penguins started to ice skate! Maybe they’d even start a penguin Olympics! Okay, probably not. Here’s my penguin skating with his birdie friends: