cartoon

The Friday Squirrel

Sketch of a squirrel reading while sitting on an old log
| Donna
Sketch of a squirrel reading while sitting on an old log
Squirrel has been busy collecting for winter and stops on a nearby log to read during a break.

A little squirrel doodle to start the weekend.

 

The iRat

Cartoon of a rat dragging a toy rat onto a charging pad. Drawn in ink with watercolour pencil. A6 sized.
| Donna

For an art theme of energy, I present the iRat. A rat grimly struggles to drag his battery-powered mate onto the charging pad for a re-charge.

You could read all sorts into this – maybe I was trying to say something about Apple device battery issues, or predicting some grim society where even the rats need a virtual buddy. Truth is, I just had this image pop into my head with a rat dragging his mate by the tail, started laughing and doodled it.

This is a tiny A6 sketch using watercolour pencils and ink on some card. The colours came out softer than I’d have liked, but they still work.

Cartoon of a rat dragging a toy rat onto a charging pad. Drawn in ink with watercolour pencil. A6 sized.
iRat – a rat grimly drags his mate onto the charging pad. A6 watercolour pencil on card.

My Drawings for Inktober (2015)

Black and white kitten drawn in ink
| Donna

2015 was my first Inktober. The challenge is to draw something in ink each day in October. It’s really useful if you want to improve your inking skills or draw more regularly.  The official website is http://inktober.com. I posted daily uploads to Twitter, Flickr and Pinterest, so if you follow me on those sites, you’ve probably seen these pictures already. Continue reading →

Happy little shelves

Illustration of two shelves with books and assorted cute decorations.
| Donna
Illustration of two shelves with books and assorted cute decorations.
Bookshelf watercolour illustration (A5)

The walls round my desk are painted in a colour perfectly named “happy yellow”.  I have some lovely shelves stained dark and covered in books, notebooks, many bottles of ink, paint and other goodies. They’re just above my computer so I rearrange things and change what’s on display to keep it interesting. Some things are there to make me smile, my supplies are close and lure me to play. There are books I want to read and a backlog of journals and notebooks remind me to write too.

Sliding Scale of Cat Stability

Illustration of a cat sliding off a table with a sliding scale noting th different expressions as it falls.
| Donna

An A5 watercolour cartoon illustration. That moment when your cat suddenly realises it didn’t quite manage to jump onto the table. You see a range of expressions followed by the denial face as they swiftly exit the scene.

Illustration of a cat sliding off a table with a sliding scale noting th different expressions as it falls.
Sliding Scale of Cat Stability. A5 watercolour.

“Nigel hasn’t been the same since he visited the bat colony”

Three little birds cartoon
| Donna

I sketched the idea for this cartoon a while ago, and thought it would be fun to work it into a cartoon illustration. After playing with different pencil sketches of the composition, I simplified my doodle and the final composition focuses right in on the birds.

I haven’t used fine liners for inking before, I prefer brush and nib strokes, but it’s fun to play with a different outline style.