Polka-Dot Dog, and more pen and ink

The Sketchbook Challenge Theme for April is polka-dots. My initial mental image was a polka-dot stuffed toy, an elephant actually, but when I went to draw my concept the elephant turned into a dog. It has some other scattered toys for company. Drawn totally out of my imagination and probably based on drawings I have seen over the years.

My idea was that the body of the animal would be a print fabric (the polka-dots) and the legs, tail and ears of a solid. Ended up picking blue as a background color for the dog, and it made sense to make the legs a darker color. The dots are actually orange though they look pretty red on my screen, orange and blue are complements, which I though would be in keeping with a kids toy.

Drawn quickly in one of my sketch books, outlined with one of my technical pens and then colored with colored pencil. It was a fun and fairly quick project. Not my usual style of drawing at all so I have to wonder who/what I was channeling. Though I did spend a lot of time drawing that dog in landscape I just finished.

The above is a Meerkat done in pen and ink for the WetCanvas Pen and Ink Forum April Challenge. The reference photograph I used is one of the April Challenge images. This was done in graphite first in one of my sketchbooks then I used the 3x0 technical pen to do the inking.

Finished another group of illustrations for the Nature Journal over the weekend. This page has images from a November 12, 2012 visit to Daniel Webster, MA Audubon Sanctuary over in Marshfield, MA.

Top image is just one Canada Goose walking on one of the paths, and the bottom is my usual tree stump in the Panne. That day there was one turtle out sunning, note that not much is showing, the water in the Panne was very high that day, probably the highest I had ever seen it. Done with mostly a dip pen over preliminary pencil drawings.

Normally I photograph sunsets but this image is of a sunrise one day last week. I had woken early and after a glance out my front windows I grabbed the camera to make this photograph. Even so I know I missed a more dramatic shot by maybe a minute or so. Colors at sunrise don't last very long.

That is it for today, per usual comments are appreciated.