CORNUCROWPIA

 art created 7-19-11

   Everyone knows crows are the cleverest of birds. So here I am to encourage all you kids to be just like them. You too can look smart by wearing specs and snappy clothes and be popular by hanging in a group. The group is called a "murder" of crows. Isn't that cool?  Crows can live anywhere. You don't need a home...just plop down on the roadside or in a field. Eat a variety of foods, including worms and insects, and get one of your friends to watch out for the authorities and caw out a warning if they see anyone coming. That way you can focus on the job of eating and reading. If you go into town, drop a nut in front of a car tire when the traffic light turns red. When the light turns green, the car runs over the nut, cracking it open. At the next red light, run out and get your snack. Very tasty, and you'll be a big hit with your friends.

 Eat a pear; read Shakespeare.

    For one of Ranger Rick's regular features: "Be Out There". You can also get other ideas for activities on their site to get you out of the house and out of your mother's hair, so to speak.

  And speaking of crows, there's a great Simpson's episode. To spare the family of having to eat genetically modified vegetables, Marge decides to grow her own corn, but her crop is attacked by crows.  So she erects a scarecrow which Homer thinks is a prowler in the dark and he beats it up and... oh... just go to this blog and you'll get the whole story.

SNUG in a SNAG

   I thought I was a nature lover; but the only kind of snag I was familiar with was the kind I get in my sweaters (darn those hangnails), until I worked on this piece.  Snags being, of course, dead trees that serve as hosts to all kinds of animals, fungi and new plants that grow in the rich soil they provide from their decay. This accompanied a page in Ranger Rick that encourages kids to see how much wildlife they can find in and around a snag.  So naturally, this snag is fully occupied.

art created 8-12-11

 

   Mr. Squirrel is a memory portrait of one cutie that destroyed our sunflowers. The one that came right up to my window ledge and gave me that very cute look.  Just checking to see if I was home.

  This is a technique I've used a few times before. The pencil drawing is completed first, then scanned and tinted; then colored in photoshop on a layer in the multiply setting so that the color is behind the drawing. The main drawback in working this way is not having a completed work of original art in color.  But I'm fairly pleased with it, so I'm turning this one into a promo piece.

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