Launch! Illustration Friday

Summer Launch
5x5 Permanent Marker
©2011 BEDeuel

We've had a short, slightly volatile, but beautiful spring since the rain stopped about 4 weeks ago here in Western New York.

As a result, the windows have been ajar on a regular basis. And, no matter the presence of screens, there are always flying visitors in the house. For the most part, as long as they don't bite, get into food or dart around our faces, we don't make a big deal about them.

What the moths and gnats don't realize is that by entering the home of the ever-entertaining Mickey, they are likely to become toys.


Mickey on Watch

They're actually fairly safe. He is not a very successful hunter, which makes him all the more fortunate that I fell in love with him at first glance. We are convinced that he would starve on his own. But, he does like to play at being a Great and Mighty Hunter.

He'll leap and bat at anything that buzzes him. The first couple of years were a bit unnerving: I wasn't sure my home furnishings were going to survive this guy. I do know that the insects survive him just fine, though!

So, of course, he is the inspiration for this week's Illustration Friday topic of "Launch". He is constantly launching off of anything he can manage.

In honor of this moment of inspiration, I dedicate this IF sketch to my Great and Mighty Hunter, Mickey and the coming of a long, and buggy, summer for his unending entertainment. And mine.

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What Your Cat Really Thinks of You...Well, Only at Dinnertime. Maybe.

IF Shadows: Stepping Out

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Dancing in the Shadows (B&W)
8x10 Permanent Marker
©BEDeuel 2010

A few years back, the middle daughter discovered the art of the Sharpie. She took any image that she liked, copied it and colored it in Sharpie, or permanent marker. She would (and still will) illustrate anything, including canvas shoes.

It was not, per se, something that I thought I'd enjoy doing myself. Until I saw an intriguing magazine cover.

The motion and colors of the dancers in the heavy shadows drew me into the scene. The intensity was there to be captured again, in a different medium.

So, I tried: Sharpies!



Dancers In the Shadows (Original)
©BEDeuel 2010

The uneven application of color detracts from the effect I was attempting to recreate. It was done on a mediocre paper and it shows.  I also, at that time, had a limited palette to work from so some of the coloring had to be improvised to a degree.

When the topic of "Shadow" was presented this week for Illo Friday, I had half-a-dozen different ideas, but stumbled across this picture in it's original form and decided to try it in a B&W effect.

And, I like it. Almost better than the original. Funny how that can happen at times, isn't it?

Since I did this sketch, I've done a great deal more with permanent markers. I've decided I like those, too. And, in working with markers, I started expanding into several different mediums I'd never thought I'd be interested in trying.

It's a series of links, like so many things in life. You're introduced to something different from the rest of your everyday world. You decide you like it, you decide to pursue it. It can lead to other new and interesting things. Some of those things you might like, others, not so much. Usually the positives outweigh the negatives, though, so the flow of new things into your world can be so exciting and energizing.

Embrace it, follow the flow wherever it goes and enjoy the results! Some of the most beautiful, yet unexpected, things can emerge from the shadows if you let them.