Illustration Friday: UNICORN

My favorite topic EVER is this week's Illustration Friday theme: UNICORN! Okay, I have quite a few, so I'm going to share them all with you here—and don't forget to check out and 'like' your favorites on my instagram account: mb.illustration!

A gift for a friend… back in the mid-1990s, I drew a lot of unicorns like this.
1999. Colored Pencil & Ink.

The Spanish Unicorn… the one that started me on this project of Unicorns of the World.
1998. Colored Pencil

Detail… I was still 'discovering' colored pencil back then, as you can see, I was having fun.
*didn't have a great scanner or auto-merge in Photoshop back then either… so all my images of this one are fairly poor.

The Caribbean Unicorn (I call them Licorne Caraïbes)
1999. Colored Pencil

Ki-lin, the Chinese Unicorn… or one of them.
1999. Colored Pencil

An African unicorn of the Serengeti (Saamoja Upangatiga).
1999. Colored Pencil

The Volcano Unicorn of the Pacific Rim of Fire… Lae-Hao-Kela
1999. Colored Pencil

The Amazonian Unicorn, Unchifre.
1999. Colored Pencil

  

The Japanese Unicorn: Kirin
1999. Colored Pencil

The Arctic Unicorn, Yksisarvinen.
1999. Colored Pencil

  

Another African Unicorn… the Saharan.
2000. Colored Pencil

One more African Unicorn, the Madagascan Unicorn.
2000. Colored Pencil

  

Inspired by Illustration Friday itself: Smitten
#feartheunicorn

Illustration Friday: ZODIAC

So, this is a bit of a repeat, originally created and posted for Alphabeasts—but totally worth it because I love this piece and it totally applies to this weeks topic. I'm still planning to try do to a new zodiac piece (perhaps a Chinese zodiac, it is the year of the horse!).

Illustration Friday: SPARK

Hey, so there didn't seem to be a new word from the folks at Illustration Friday this week, so I'm totally going to use this edited piece as my submission for SPARK. Ideas can come from the tiniest sparks of inspiration—keep an eye out and you'll see them everywhere!

IF: Entangled

Hey, what?! Two days in a row? No way…

So, this one's a bit of a cheat since it's from a book I worked on last year (The Zoo's Annual Piggyback Race, March 2013 - available from me or the author/publisher)… but it was just so perfect for this #iFri prompt, and it was definitely one of the more challenging pieces from the book.

"The snakes became tangled, around and around"

I actually tangled up two different colored stings for reference, and drew directly from that. Apparently I never took a reference photo of the tangled mess, but I think the result speaks for itself!

(I plan to do a new piece as well, continue with experimenting, etc.)

iFri Afternoon (9/21)

Kind of a whirlwind week here … including fun design projects (super-cute booklets and maps!), quotes and contracts for illustration projects (not as much fun, cough-cough), and diving into the World of WordPress (not unlike some torture devices I've heard of)! AH!
I'm lucky to end each and every week with a scheduled Friday afternoon Illustration Friday session at a local coffee house with my colleagues at Tangerine Café. Although yesterday's #iFri session turned out to be more of a wordpress workshop, I'm not complaining – that stuff will come in handy!
I grabbed a new sketchbook (not moleskin, shocker!) and doodled until I filled a page, testing out some new pen & pencils samples I got last week at a CPSA meeting with Prismacolor Rep, Shelley Minnis. Most of this is stream-of-consciousness / idea generating chicken-scratch – but a solid idea did take root and I hope to keep working on it today at our regularly scheduled monthly CPSA meeting (CPSA-DC219, ABQ).

Sketching for #ifri for a change!!

So, this talking about stuff I'm doing thing, here on the blog – do you like it? Is this stuff even remotely interesting in the least? I've never really used the blog of discussion before, it's always just been a way to share sketches and extras that aren't 'portfolio' work.
After a crazy-busy summer work schedule and ignoring my blog for 3 months, I'm trying to make an effort to post here more often – especially since I discovered I have nearly 40 people subscribed to it!  (thanks folks!) Let me know what you think. ;)

Illustration Friday: PREPARE

I actually started this on Friday, and got it mostly done… but it's been a crazy few days and I got side-tracked as per usual. But I've finished this up today and am posting for IF on my birthday… my gift to myself I guess!

What was funny, I made a pear/gorgonzola/pecan salad on Thursday evening, and had drawn it similar to this (only in pen & ink, not pencil -- will post as part of my drawing morning pages in a bit). When I showed it to my friends at our weekly Illustration Friday get-together at the local coffee house, Lynn Platow suggested it would make a great drawing for this week's IF theme. Ha! Not wanting to "cheat", I decided to make a new drawing, in pencil, based on the salad I made for lunch on Friday. If I'd done it to the right template, this could totally work for TDAC. LOL


BTW, I totally did this on the fly… remembering the ingredients and picturing them in my head. Sometimes it's good to draw from life, sometime it's okay to make it up as you. ;)

F is for Fandango** / Illustration Friday: VANITY

If the fancy Fandangos seem stuck-up and snooty,
It is because of their exquisite beauty.
They're most often seen with smug smiling faces,
By a crustal clear pond in a jungle oasis.
There they linger for hours with nothing to do
But sip the sweet water and admire the view.
And the view they admire, as you might well suppose,
Is their own reflection, right under their nose.

from NO SUCH THINGS, by Bill Peet

*This week I got to combine my extracurricular blog posts, and it was all do to kismet! I originally thought of doing a Dr. Suess creature (I still am, working on it!), so I ran to the library to grab a couple of the books I didn't have - and on display were a couple Bill Peet books I was not familiar with (I am a true Bill Peet fan from childhood - when we went to the books store, I was always asking for a new Bill Peet book), so I snatched them up and brought them home not even really paying attention to what they were about.
One of those books, NO SUCH THINGS, just happens to be a book of made up creatures! It was just perfect. I looked at the cover thinking, I really hope those horse-like creatures start with an F, because they are just so cool -- and they DID. And apparently they're extremely vane creatures, which totally fits in with Illustration Friday's theme this week: Vanity. Such lucky and fun discoveries this weekend. :)
**and also FANART

Illustration Friday: SILENT

I'm not quite sure how I landed on this process of doing TWO drawings for Illustration Friday, but this make two weeks in a row.
Trying to limit myself to line drawings for the time being, just as a challenge.
What is it about wombats that's so darn CUTE!?

Illustration Friday: STRIPES

Well, since I didn't finish my drawing last Friday, I've had a few days to think about this one and I ended up with two cute little line drawings for Illustration Friday.

Illustration Friday: SCARY

If there's one thing getting back into IF is teaching me… it's that I really don't like the way I draw stylized people. Gimme a reference and I can draw it well… but I just can't "imagine" them like I can animals… sensing a new self-challenge may come of this.

Illustration Friday: FUEL

Illustration Friday: SCATTERED

Illustration Friday: GESTURE

I've been so swamped with design work this past week, I've had type on the brain… so the other day I started doodling Gs for my morning pages drawing. I think they are quite expressive and "gestural", if you will…

Illustration Friday: STAY -- pt2

So, my twitter friend & illustrator, Greg Matusic, based his IF post this week, on a song. Which I thought was funny because my original thought for the "Stay" theme was the oldies song by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs…

But my morning pages doodle from last Friday had turned out so right for the theme, I decided to post that and be done with it. When I read about and then saw Greg's post, I decided I really couldn't ignore it… so I went ahead and did this piece based on this classic song… one of my faves from the doo-wop era.

Illustration Friday: REMEDY (belated)

Laughter is the best medicine…
So, this is late, but here it is. I still think I forced it a bit, but I had the idea and I wanted to follow through. Yay, me.

Illustration Friday: STAY

So, this was a "morning/afternoon/evening pages" doodle I started and chipped away at all day today… it wasn't until I was almost done that I looked at it and thought, "Stay" and burst out laughing to myself.

Yes, you there… monstrous red, two-headed, six-legged wolf-dog… you stay right THERE -- and I'll just walk away, FAR AWAY. Pay me no mind, do not follow me, just STAY.

I'll probably play around with the word some more during the week and try to do something a bit more apropos to my current portfolio goals… but this was a fun little experiment for today.

Illustration Friday: MIDSUMMER NIGHT

Once again, I've run out of time… but I'm still trying to keep my promises to myself and participate & post for Illustration Friday regularly. So, here's a work-in-progress for the Midsummer Night theme: a mock-up book cover sketch. I plan to add a whole lot more (possibly animals in the tress, fairies?, etc.) and make it a real melding of illustration in the background with designy elements in vector overlapping/transparent on top. I also couldn't pass up a chance to do some hand lettering. Love it.

Basically I just started doodling and my mind wandered and eventually landed on this idea for a book cover. All while on a plane, being watched by fellow travelers.

Illustration Friday: LAUNCH

This week has turned into something crazier than I can manage. I was hoping to do a finished drawing of this, but I am just not going to have the time this week… so I decided to just post this concept sketch and be done with it - accept and move on. Fun stuff happening, so I can't be too upset about it. :)

Illustration Friday: SWEPT

Admittedly, this is more "windswept" than just "swept", but this is my story and I'm stickin' to it. Below are the various sketches I made in the process of arriving at the final drawing. I started with sand dunes because they're constantly swept by the wind, shaped in fact… and then I stumbled upon the Sand Cat, a critter I had never heard of before. They're pretty darn cute and I had a lot of fun drawing them over and over.



Update: Revision Comparison

Illustration Friday: SHADOWS

In know, I know - pirates, tropical islands, sea monsters, they're all are so overdone, but still, they're just so… cool. Partially inspired by my crit partner Wendy Martin and partially inspired by my own morning pages doodling… I somehow landed on this image that (I think) has a strong narrative (or maybe you're just thinking - what IS THAT, and what's going on THERE - you tell me?), with the shadows playing a large part in the story telling. I had a lot of fun with this, I somehow managed to give myself a million challenges and I'm happy with the results… but I know what it all is and the basic idea of what's going on - the question is, can everyone else tell?!

Because the shadows where so important to the concept, I decided to do something I haven't done since college and sculpt my own little reference for lighting. I took several photos, collaged different bits together in photoshop and cropped it as if it was a two page spread… although if I really intended this for a picture book piece, I'd probably finish it in color -- but at the moment I want to add more black & white to my portfolio.

Thoughts? I'd love to hear your what you think. :)



**And just a little side note -- after posting this I went and actually spent some time looking at other IF post-ers for this week's theme … and I am just AMAZED. So many unique perspectives, styles, concepts, pov's and just hugely talented people out there! Intimidating AND inspiring. Bravo IF-ers, BRAVO!