sketchbook sundays

Tags

animals, art, drawing, fine point pens, frog, frogs, leaf, nature, pen and ink, sketchbook sundays

Oak Toad on a Leaf
Micron 05 and 01 fine point pen

And that’s it for my drawing pad of 6×8 paper! Though I have a couple other blank sketchbooks waiting, I might get another 6×8 pad to have around. I like working in this size for several reasons. One, it takes less time to go from concept to completion than it does with a 9×12 drawing. Two, the dimensions make it easier to crop to a 5×7 aspect ratio for custom-printed greeting cards. Three, I can find mats and frames for a much more reasonable price at this size, compared to the relatively exorbitant cost of matting a 9×12 to an 11×14 frame. And four, since I draw all my mid-tone lines by hand without a ruler, it is less challenging to cover large areas of the drawing than it is in a 9×12. Just try drawing hundreds of straight lines across a 9×12 sheet of paper sometime, and you’ll see what I mean!

Like last week’s damselfly, this toad had as its photo reference one of my mother’s recent nature photographs. She’s taken some especially crisp and detailed photos of small animals lately, and it’s been fun using them as inspiration for opportunities to practice inking with fine point pens.

Mantis and Cactus Flowers

Tags

animals, cactus, flower, Mantis, nature, wildlife

 
Today is the first day we’ve seen the cactus in the front yard burst into bloom overnight. Perhaps it liked the rain we got yesterday. To make the event more rare, we have never seen a preying mantis here in the urban desert either. But this morning, when we stopped to admire the flowers, one tiny mantis had already staked a claim to them.

 

 
We suppose if the flowers attract ants, bees, and other pollinators, then this is the mantis version of a hunting shanty or hidden fishing hole. Maybe the mantis will chop the heads off little bugs and stick them on the cactus spikes like trophies. How awesome would that be? We’ll check in on mantis later and see how the hunt goes.

 

 
Oops, we disturbed the mantis. See how it moves down into the spikes? Smart thinking, mantis. Now sit still!

 

Puma Blues: The Dreaming!

Tags

aardvark-vanaheim, Dreaming, dreams, Indie Comics, Michael Zulli, nature, puma, Puma Blues, wildlife, wildlife art

 
Puma Blues #13 brings together many of our favorite themes here at Mars Will Send No More, from wildlife art to dreams and silent issues. If Michael Zulli’s art appeals to you, we have more samples of Zulli’s wildlife art in our archives. Let us also recommend to you, again from our archives, John Totleben’s wonderful fish-filled issue of the Vertigo series The Dreaming.

 

 
Collector’s Guide:
In September, 2015, Dover Publications will print the entire series in one 480-page hardcover volume. You can find it listed on Amazon as The Puma Blues (Dover Graphic Novels). It is available for pre-order currently, and at $25 for Amazon Prime members.

Previous printings include:
– The Puma Blues; Aardvark-Vanaheim, 1986
– Reprinted in The Puma Blues Book One and Book Two; Mirage Studios, 1988.

puma by joe robertson

Tags

art, Joe Robertson, mountain lion, nature, puma, scratch board, wildlife

 
Scratchboard artist Joe Robertson’s work caught our eye at a local art festival last year. What a magnificient mountain lion he created! This print is called Mountain King. You can get one of your own online at Joe’s Art Gallery.

Puma Blues: Wildlife Art by Michael Zulli!

Tags

animals, art, drawing, Indie Comics, Michael Zulli, nature, Puma Blues, wildlife

 
Aardvark’s The Puma Blues from 1986 features the artwork of Michael Zulli. Zulli drew some of our favorite Ninja Turtles pages in the story Soul’s Winter, taking those silly cartoon characters and imbuing them with a totally different, darker spirit. Here, however, Zulli portrays wilderness and the animals that live there, and the borders where they contact the human world.

Collector’s Guide:
– from The Puma Blues; Aardvark-Vanaheim, 1986
– Reprinted in The Puma Blues Book One and Book Two; Mirage Studios, 1988.

wolverine

Tags

album of north american animals, animals, clark bronson, nature, rand mcnally, vera dugdale, Wolverine

 
This week we’ll take a look at three of our favorite animals from The Album of North American Animals: the wolverine, the bobcat, and the cougar! This wonderfully illustrated book came in many editions, some of which fetch high prices on Amazon. We have the sixth printing, from the mid 80s, which cost much less. Many of the 26 animals featured within have become exceedingly rare due to loss of habitat caused by the expansion of our cities and industry. Liberate the mountain lions!

Collector’s Guide:
– from Album of North American Animals; Rand McNally, 1966.
Text by Vera Dugdale, illustrations by Clark Bronson.