So I’ve been told that this story isn’t as funny on paper as it was in person. But, I have to draw something about it anyway.

Two evenings ago my husband and I were sitting at our kitchen table eating dinner, when we saw through the window a young boy come bolting down the sidewalk with a cardboard box on his head. I have no idea where he came from, or where he was going (hopefully he knew where he was going!), but it looked hilarious and made my day.

Maybe he was merely on a casual run on a sunny day and the cardboard box served as his hat to protect him from the heat? Let’s hope this is the case.

I’ve decided to make a 10 minute sketch in his honor, in the hopes that someone else might find this as funny as I did

In this week’s sketch of “flying penguin”, we find our penguin posed elegantly up high in the sky.

Wait a minute. What’s that long neck below him?

Busted!

Here is the color version of the flying penguin. I have to admit, this character is growing on me. I might need to make a series of illustrations with penguins trying to fly until I get it out of my system

I’m also gonna throw this up on Illustration Friday too, since their theme this week is “wild”. And this penguin is definitely WILD.

Have a BEEautiful day, and thanks for checking out my blog.

The flying penguin has returned, and he’s beeing especially daring this time. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the punny opportunity) The color version will be up tomorrow!

I’m planning on submitting two designs to the “Ironclad Art” competition for the manhole covers in Vancouver. The challenge is to make a design that will “identify and uniquely distinguish sanitary from storm sewer manhole covers”. I’m still deciding which two to submit, but at least I’ve got it narrowed down to these three! If you have any feedback on which one you like the best, send me an email!

This week I pulled out my paint and made some art for Easter. The goal of this painting was to reflect the contrast between the cultural Easter with colorful eggs, chocolate and bunnies, and the Christian Easter of blood, death and resurrection. I’ve always wondered how the Easter Bunny and Christ got woven into the same holiday. The one theme that I see in both traditions, is the theme of “life”. Christians celebrate Christ’s resurrection from death into life;  bunnies are symbols of fertility, which is the potential for life; and eggs are the start of life. So, I chose to use the “Easter egg” to (hopefully) make this connection visually.

It was an interesting exploration. And I’m sure, there’s lots more that could be interpreted from it, but I’ll leave that up to you

So, this project was something different for me. I’ve made a lot of people portraits, but not so many animals. The drawing was completed a few weeks ago for some friends who recently said “good-bye” to their long-time companion, Bailey.  I’ve been told that he was the best family dog ever and loved to visit the lake that is drawn in the background. He lived from Sept 1999 – Jan 2nd 2013 and will be dearly missed by his family. Much love and comfort to you all!

Copyright Joelle Gebhardt 2013

This is the final version for Illustration Friday.  For those of you who are wondering, Illustration Friday is an open blog that has a new theme every week. The theme for this week is ‘talent’. Any artist who has a blog can make an illustration based on the theme and then post on the wall. I like to participate once in a while because it helps to get ideas flowing when I’m feeling stuck for inspiration.

And just to clarify, there is no such place as the ‘School of Talentology’. (At least, I don’t think there is!) I made it up for the purpose of the project. Sorry to dash your hopes if you wanted to enroll.

We have color folks!  I decided to experiment with textures in this final illustration. Normally I would ink over top of the sketch, but I actually like how this worked out.