Read Any Good Fiction Books?

I always enjoy hearing what fiction books YOU are reading!

• What is your past favorite book as a child?
• What did you read recently?
• And perhaps… What you just started! 🙂

Below are my answers to these questions (highlighted):

And my goals for reading books this year – I hope to read at least one book a month:

I enjoyed this assignment from Carla Sonheim in the 365 Daily Creative Practice online class.  It made me pay attention to the first sentence of a book of fiction.

After all, I do believe it IS that first sentence that truly grabs my attention!

Happy Reading!

Cheers! 🙂

 

St. Peter’s Fish

As many of you know, I love learning new things!  🙂

My recent art challenge of creating 50 fish on Instagram has left me fishing for information about this subject.

We can learn a ton on the internet but I also LOVE books!! So I purchased this book recently from Amazon:

This is a great book for “kids of all ages!”  I love all the amazing photos and also the basic information such as how fish swim.

I drew this one-liner fish, “John Dory” also known as St. Peter’s Fish from this book:

Do you see the false eye on the side of the fish?

According to legend, over 2000 years ago, St. Peter dropped a coin in the Sea of Galilee and the fish caught it.  St. Peter picked the fish up and took the coin back, leaving his fingerprints on the skin of the fish…

This is an odd-looking fish found in European waters.  It is oval with a flat body and a large spiny head.  The white boneless, meaty flesh is firm and flavorsome if cooked properly.  It is condsidered a culinary delicacy.

I hope you found it as interesting to learn about as I did.

Cheers to learning new things!  🙂

What Do You Love?!

I finally got a few moments to START Lynn Whipple’s new online class, WORD PLAY!  I love playing with words so I know this class will be a so FUN!

I created this in an old dictionary using white chalk paint, water soluble wax pastels, Tombow markers and pencil:

If you could choose one or two WORDS, what do you love?

I would love to hear from you!  🙂

Happy Saturday!

The Spotted Nothura

The very talented Charlie O’ Shields over at Doodlewash (which you can find his blog here), recently gave me his permission to use an abstract watercolor painting he created on his blog.

After looking at his abstract for several days, I was able to “spot” a bird in it:

A Spotted Nothura to be exact!  Yes, this is a REAL bird and not one of my imaginary ones!  LOL!

With the help of one of my favorite bird books:

This bird seemed to FLY off the page at me!  🙂

For one thing, this bird had spots.  And Charlie’s abstract had spots (or splatter):

Now, I DO realize that the actual bird does not have the same color of spots as my bird…  this is where artistic freedom comes into play!

I learned from my book, “Extreme Birds” that this bird is considered the “worst flier.”  This bird is from the tinamous species which only fly when under extreme pressure, (ground predators).  “They are heavy, muscular birds with big feet, but their wings and tail – aerodynamic essentials – are decidedly small for the size of the bird which is approximately 24 to 25.5 cm (9.4–10.0 in) in length.  Often when this bird makes an emergency takeoff their control lets them down, and they find themselves crashing into objects, such as trees or rocks, often killing themselves.”

I decided to “ground” my bird to keep him safe:

Using the remainder of Charlie’s art paper, I created the background and added a little color with Inktense pencils.  It is an abstract after all!

Thanks Charlie for the challenge!  🙂

Happy Flying!

What Are You Reading?

Summer is the time that I like to curl up in the shade and read a good book.  So I decided to make a couple of bookmarkers with my silly fish:

I drew them with a black Micron pen and then colored with Copic markers and Prismacolor pencils.

I think I like “Baby Face” the best!  🙂  Do you have a favorite?

I am currently reading this book, “Sarah’s Key” by Tatiana de Rosnay:

It is an excellent story about July 1942, the days of the Vel’ d’Hiv’ in Nazi-occupied Paris.  Have you read it?

I borrowed my book from a friend so I thought I’d return it with one of my fish bookmarkers.

I also made one to keep for myself – this one is double-sided:

I used cheap watercolors and Prismacolor pencils to color this one.

What book you are reading or would you recommend?  I’d love to hear from you!

Happy Reading!  🙂

Hippity-Hop The Robin Goes…

There has been a male Robin singing loudly outside my window in the evenings, trying to attract a female.  I don’t usually pay much attention to the American Robin because they are so common in my area.

His loud cheery song prompted me to create this collage last night:

I looked at a photo of a real bird, a Robin and pasted a variety of papers together to create this bird.  I like his red breast, don’t you?

I often see Robins in our yard with their head cocked to one side, staring motionless at the ground, waiting for a worm.  Robins eat large numbers of earthworms in the spring and summer as well as insects and some snails.

Robins also eat an enormous variety of fruits.  In the late winter and early Spring, I see Robins eating the crabapples on our backyard tree.  I took a photo today of our crabapple tree in full bloom – so glorious!

I like the poem from this old book:

Hippity-hop the Robin goes,                                                                                 Skipping along on his dainty toes,                                                                                   Pulling up worms with hearty tugs,                                                                        Chasing and catching unwary bugs;                                                                              He has a lovely bright red breast,                                                                                       I think I love the Robin best.

May the cheery song of a Robin brighten your day!

Happy Creating!