Fanciful Fruit

Yes, it's true, I have spent the last two days drawing reproductive organs in both full and cross section. Of course, these are the reproductive organs of plants, but that is beside the point. They were originally created for the "Whimsy Artists Unite!" swap on Illustrated ATCs, but then I re-read the rules and discovered that they wanted fantasy whimsical art - critters etc, and thus I now have a set of seven with no home to go to. No worries, I had way too much fun drawing these, which just goes to show that stepping out of your comfort zone can be enjoyable too.

I also rather enjoyed making a sort of sauce from the tamarillo and kiwifruit and serving it up with pumpkin waffles for dinner.

The feijoa, pineapple, chili and pumpkin were actually photo referenced from the Net, but the other three were drawn from the real thing. The aubergine will be made into a chicken delicious dish tomorrow (that's what it's called).

If there are any more fruit you'd like to see me interpret in my style, or if you'd like to trade for one of these, please let me know.

Entering the Amazon

Today's offering is merely the lineart for a piece I am working on for Miloccep. It is a 4-ATC piece featuring 5 Amazonian animals. They are the toucanet, the pygmy marmoset, a species of butterfly, a poison dart frog and a giant anteater. The plant featured is coffee.

Aside from that, I have not been doing much. A couple more quick-draw birds that haven't been scanned yet and that's about it. TOmorrow I need to colour this in and design a bookmark for my almost finished Reading Group.

I have had three letters lost in transit to me recently and am starting to get somewhat antsy about the mail system. I think it might be time to stop the art mail for a bit. I hate it when people's unique work goes AWOL on its way to me. Might be time to dust off my lemur novel and get writing!

Klassic Kiwiana Kitsch

My challenge this weekend:
As my most popular cards recently appear to be my "birds in 13 minutes" (people keep asking me for them, but they've already flown the coop), I have resolved this weekend to see how many bird portraits I can rustle up within 2 hours.
So keep watching to see my progress!
Species I must draw - duck or owl for Jake, a parrot for Timeinmyhands and something for Wrick.

Today I bring to you Klassic Kiwiana Kitsch

Three cards for Artree/Ahtree. Two are based on classic Kiwiana - little quirky things that symbolise the essence of New Zealand, the other is a fruit. She asked for fruit that was uniquely ours - well, we don't really have anything interesting like pineapples or what not and even kiwifruit (which ARE kiwiana) are actually from China. So what we have here is:

Happy Takahe Hen and tussock grass
Happy Hens are folk art ceramic hens that are made in Dunedin, NZ and are one of those popular, iconic, souvenirs, the takahe is a particularly rare flightless rail that spent 40 years being extinct until found in an isolated Fiordland valley by a dedicated conservationalist. There are two species of tussock grass featured here and one tussock flower - all good takahe food.

Buzzy Bee and Tomato Sauce Bottle
Buzzy Bees are bright, cheerful wooden pull-along toys that are one of our most well known icons. Most Kiwi kids had them. The squeezable Tomato bottle in the shape of... a tomato ... is found in most Kiwi kitchens. NZ flag is one of the unofficial "lets redesign the NZ flag so it's less English and more us) Thei s the Jeffy James style.

Bush Snowberry (Takapo)
Like most of our native fruit, NZ snowberry is small and realatively unexciting. I'm not even sure you can eat them, but the birds did, before we killed off nearly all of the fruit-dispersing birds leaving only the kaka and kereru common enough to disperse them.