Inktober and fun holidays - Happy Black Cat Day!

It's still inktober. I usually pick a different subject for each week of inktober, with an overall theme of Halloween. However, this year, I decided to draw ghosts for 31 days. Yay ghosts! Here are my ghosts since my last inktober post (in reverse order starting with today - most of these are cell pics, as I didn't have my scanner with me while traveling):

Day 27 (today): Happy Black Cat Day! I didn't know it was Black Cat Day when I did my ink drawing of a ghost hiding in a hollow tree, but then I found out, so I did another drawing of a ghost and a black cat hanging out in a tree:

Day 26: Happy Pumpkin Day! Didn't know it was pumpkin day when I drew my picture yesterday, but my little ghost was getting ready for a pumpkin party, so it worked out well.

Days 24-25: Monday Morning Ghost Traffic and a Big Tuesday Pancake Breakfast! (What? ghosts have to get to work, and they like pancakes too.)

Days 22-23: Once A Reader (or a painter) Always A Reader (or a painter).

Days 20 - 21: Ghost Writers work long hours and like to take naps to dream up their next story:

Day 19:  Pug among ghosts:

Days 17 -18: Ghost Kitty needs to find her friends and decorate her pumpkin! These two drawings are from my Halloween Activities for kids page. There are six activities, including Dot to Dot, matching ghosts, pumpkin decorating, finishing a drawing, finding a pumpkin and ghost in the pumpkin patch, and a leaf maze (all featuring Ghost Kitty from my new Halloween story, Glide and EEK! ).

Day 16: Ghost and Ghost Kitty - also from the Halloween Activities page. (Note: the original file doesn't have the dot in the center. Not sure why it's there when I upload it. Weird!) Click here if you're looking for Halloween Activities to do with kids (or for yourself, just for fun).

Day 15: Pfft! (I think the ghost is upset at being last, or is ready to be done with this post.)

Happy Black Cat Day! Happy Inktober! Happy Haunting!

trains, lost socks, birds, bears, readers and triangles

I'm continuing to make art for unusual holidays. Here are a few recent holidays you may or may not have ever heard of:

Today is 3 holidays! It's Lost Sock Day -and- Train Day -and- Migratory Bird Day, so the birds are following the sock train (driven by the bear who liked blueberry pie in April, and who is confused by coconut pie below). Note: the car with the lost socks has single socks looking for a match, and the found car has pairs of socks!

Yesterday was Coconut Pie Day. The bear is confused about which pi day it is:

On Thursday, I celebrated Get Caught Reading Month and Children's Book Week with a tree full of readers. (Note: the colors of the original painting are better and have more contrast. I think I might need a new scanner.)

Did you see Ewe and Aye in the tree? Here's a close up:

 The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is triangle. I noticed recently that I like to draw and paint triangle shaped ears for dogs (probably because many dogs have triangle shaped ears - cats too). Here's a blast from the past picture of puppies with triangle ears (the image also has a triangle shaped design, formed by the crossing of the soda pop bottles on the bottom and the puppies on the top). This is also the only gouache painting I've done that I've ever liked (not a huge fan of painting with gouache - I like the colors, so I wish I liked the medium better):

Here's another old example of a puppy with triangle ears (this painting is acrylic, not gouache):

If you want to see my previous holiday art, please click here. I'm still making art for unusual holidays, so if you enjoyed these, please visit again!

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

Happy Pig In A Blanket Day! Happy Arbor Day!

You might know that today is Arbor Day (yay trees), but did you know it's also Pig In A Blanket Day? I didn't know that until this morning. Once I found out, I couldn't resist drawing a pig in a blanket:

I remember planting trees for Arbor Day as a kid, and thought that my piggy might want to plant a tree too. She's the sort of pig who likes to share her good fortune, so she gave the little tree her blanket to help prop it up (the blanket and the little tree remind me of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree):

For the people who like to know how the art was created: Both these images were done with my new Pentel Pocket Brush Pen (which I'm still getting used to) and watercolor. Here's how the Pig In A Blanket looked in ink vs. color (ink picture taken with cell, so it's not quite as clear):

And here's the Arbor Day Pig in ink vs. color. She's missing her tail in the ink picture - it got added after (ink picture taken with cell again).

If I had a yard to plant a tree, I probably would have celebrated Arbor Day that way, but since I don't, and it's also Pig In A Blanket Day, I decided to get creative to celebrate.

Did you celebrate Arbor Day or Pig In A Blanket Day?

Have you ever heard of  Pig In A Blanket Day?

Me neither, but it was fun to draw!

birds, Kitty, bees, ruckus for IF, and a new postcard

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is ruckus. It just so happens that I've been working on images for a new postcard, and the events of the first image lead to a ruckus in the second one!

Image #1: Kitty is hiding in the flowers, hoping that by holding very still, a birdie will land so she can catch it (in her mouth).

One of the birdies is having none of that, and is going to fight back, with bees! A close up:

When we turn the page (or the postcard), we see the ruckus in full swing!

These two images are for the new postcard I'm going to send out soon (off to the printer early next week). Here's how they look on the postcard - the front:

and the back (not sure why blogger made the background grey - it's white):

and look, there are bees instead of dashes in the text!

Will be working on more art for my portfolio while I wait for the postcards to be printed!

Hope your day is ruckus free, or if not, that it's a fun sort of ruckus, and not a swarm of bees chasing you sort of ruckus!