when dreams take flight

java jive

I clearly need more coffee this morning...

Swarm

/swɔrm/ Show Spelfor Illustration Friday:

 

swarm

–noun

1. a body of honeybees that emigrate from a hive and fly off together, accompanied by a queen, to start a new colony.

 

 

Now offering free backgrounds!

So I've decided to try  my hand at free Blogger backgrounds.
You'll see there are a couple of new tabs at the top of my blog, under my header. The one on the right, that says "free backgrounds" will take you here.
I've also included instructions for uploading.  You can maybe use them for other blog formats, but since I don't use any others, I just don't know. If anyone tries it with something other than Blogger, or other than the Watermark template for Blogger, let me know if it works!


Update: I have decided upon 30 minutes of much consideration, that I'm going to start another blog to post the backgrounds, but I will also post them here.
New blog: oldcrowbackgrounds.blogspot.com

Twice the exposure, can't be all bad, right? Unless it's 95 degrees out and you don't have your backside covered, then...well...

Just for fun

'Cause I'm silly that way.
And bored out of my freakin' skull.

Sweater

For Illustration Friday.



It's a little big...but how could you ever tell her you don't like it?

Failed experiment

So I have been getting a lot of spam comments lately on this blog. Really, why do people feel the need to do that? If I wanted to link to your crappy shoe sale blog, I would have already done so. If I wanted your opinion on how American women suck and everybody needs to marry foreigners, I would have solicited it directly. (Seriously - I got one of those today...some rambling tirade by an obvious nut case. I deleted it.)
Anyway, because I was sick of them, I changed my settings to need comment moderation.

I get a big fat FAIL, because I forgot to put my email address in to have notifications that people had left comments. I thought no one loved me anymore because I had no comments! (I should have known better, eh?) Then I went in my settings to change something else, and BEHOLD! there were over a dozen comments just waiting for me!
I'm so lame.

So, sorry if anyone was checking back to see comments. I changed it back. I will just have to be diligent and keep marking spammers.
And for you who seem to think it's okay to spam innocent artists on their blogs- knock it the hell off, you losers!

Be Mime

Cafe des Petits Amis

How's my French?

So here's where this came from... After the last blog post, with Mouse juggling his cocktail olives, I got this lovely comment from Martine-Alison:

martinealison said...

Adorable que cette petite souris...
Une fois je me trouvais assise à la terrasse d'un café à Mougins dans le sud de la France. En face de moi, plus loin, se trouvait un monsieur qui avait sur son épaule son animal de compagnie, un rat blanc. Parfois il lui tendait son verre pour que celui-ci boive... j'étais très surprise de ce duo de choc!
Gros bisous à vous Tera.

Um, okay...it looked nice... (and it was!)
Luckily Secret Agent Man has some understanding of French so he translated for me:
"This adorable little mouse... One time, I was sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Mougins in the south of France. In front of me later (further?), was a gentleman who had his pet white rat on his shoulder. Sometimes he held out his glass to drink it... I was very surprised by this pair! Big kisses to you Tera."

This made me want to draw a picture.
So I did.
Thanks Martine-Alison!

Mouse goes to Book Land

Based on an almost overwhelming vote for Mouse, I chose him to represent me for the "100 Illustrations" book. I was also leaning that direction as I thought he had a more universal appeal. I changed it up just a tad to fit the layout better.
I just hope he had his drink after he was done piloting his little ship and not before!

Thanks to everyone who provided input!

Spam & Art

Dear Loser Spam Commenter,
While I actually like Spam and eggs...I do not like your recent attempts to use my blog as a re-direct to your stupid shoe advertisement blog. You have now done this twice with my last blog post. Your comments, which I have deleted, don't even make sense. So knock it off. I have reported your sorry ass as well, and while I appreciate your right to have a advertisement blog, I do not appreciate your lame-ass attempt at directing traffic there via my site. So piss off.

Dear Actual Readers,
Sorry for the rant. To make up for it I have a new piece of art to share! And a question to ask of you.

I have been asked to participate in the "100 Illustrations" book being published later this year. I am thinking of submitting one of the recent works from here and here. In addition, keeping to the same general feeling of the recent pieces, I finished this one yesterday:



My question is this - I can submit one piece of artwork of my choice. Should I submit one of these? Something from the Sketchbook? Something entirely different?

I was also thinking about this one:


I just don't know!
I think I've blown a brain fuse... :)

Going Home

Another piece based on an idea I had in my head. Again - not really even close to what I pictured, but it came out okay.