Billie & Regina Argue about Spitting

You want me to what? asked Regina, standing with her back to her sister as instructed.

Walk twenty paces, then turn and spit! said Billie.

Are we having a duel?  Really?  A spit duel?

Yes! said Billie.

You can’t, said Regina.

Can’t what?  Duel?  Sure we can duel!  It won’t hurt.

No.  Spit.  Have you ever spit at anything before?

Not exactly, said Billie.  Should we practice first?

Regina sighed.  You know you have a beak, right?  I don’t think a beak is made for spitting.

Olive's Niece and the Uneventful Visit

Olive was exasperated with her husband.  This habit of sleeping upside down, for one thing, always gave him a headache.  Her husband never connected the two events.  Lack of caffeine was his firm conviction vis-à-vis headache causation.

Either way, he shouldn’t be napping when their niece Gloria came to visit.  But it ran in his side of the family, the constant napping.  Gloria tried to stay awake, but she too fell asleep shortly after her arrival.  Right side up, at least.  His side of the family.

But I made cheesecake! groused Olive.  With licorice!  She huffed about for several minutes then went to check her email.

In an effort to track the history of my descent into madness… er, the learning curve of this whole digital coloring business, I hereby present the newest creature(s) with several color variations.  The first is the one I prefer, and will likely have a print made.  The blue one is nice.  The pink one, a mess.  Of course, people being what they are:  both amusing and infuriating, strange, unknowable and endlessly interesting in their variety – someone is bound to like the pink one most.

Maybe I should also mention I have been uploading all these myriad of creatures in 72 dpi.  If one clicks on them, they blow up quite a bit clearer and nicer.  But not so nice, one hopes, that people steal them and print them out and/or pretend they made them.  Which does assume someone will show up here and find them, *and* be a person who wants to steal and/or print them.  On the other hand, many can also be found at Etsy or deviantArt (see the links on the right side of the page)!

Two Dogs, One Beast, in Orange

The dogs had been waiting more than an hour for their guide to arrive. When she finally showed, they did not know what to make of her. Cyrus, the larger dog, was particularly suspicious. This was not a dog. Was it? Had he seen all the other kinds of dogs in the entire world? And besides, what kind of place was this? The chairs were very strange.

He decided, finally, to trust the odd beast. What choice did he have?  Luckily,  the beast turned out to be very nice – although she did not speak dog very well. Mops, the puppy, never experienced a moment of concern. He just followed Cyrus around. You know, like a puppy.

Two Dogs, One Beast, Bare

Two Dogs, One Beast, in Blue

Two Dogs, One Beast, with Pink Planets

Yeah, not sure about the planets.  First of all, they don’t actually look like planets.  If I wanted planets, I should have drawn in some planets before scanning.  They look a bit more like party balls than planets.  In any case, I do not consider the planet/party ball business a success.  I just added this one for another color comparison.

When I started painting these Seussian beasts, ages ago (oh geez, 1987?), they were always accompanied by dogs.  I’m not sure why I left off the dogs for a while, but they are back.  Because dogs are the coolest.  And I wouldn’t really be interested in a land with purple skies and crazy, long-necked beasts without dogs.  I do know one dog-averse person (I don’t really understand it), so at least one person wouldn’t be interested in the dogs.  And I’m sure cat people might like some cats to appear.  I think perhaps there will be some cats.  But these things take time.

I like the bright skies partially covered in bright clouds.  This is not a difficult digital-coloring trick.  You have to start somewhere, however.

Sneeble tried to start a conversation with the strange dog. He said he was friends with Cyrus, a dog who liked to roll in the dirt beside the river. Did he know Cyrus?  The strange dog said, no, he did not know Cyrus, why would he know Cyrus? And anyway, did Sneeble happen to have any snacks?

Sneeble said he figured dogs knew other dogs.  He offered berries from the stripey grasses, but the strange dog turned up his nose.  Sneeble looked past the strange dog into the distance, in the hopes that a better conversationalist would appear.

Cyrus was not paying attention and almost walked right into the painted beast.  Pardon me, he said.  I am Cyrus.  The painted beast replied with two snorts, a sort of whinny and a shake of her hair.  This was a language Cyrus had never really mastered.  He was pretty sure the painted beast was not going to eat him.  Or spit on him.  Or something else distasteful.

He waited a few moments to see if anything else would happen.

Jolly and Kitten Nap in the Great Blue Cloud

Originally, they had set out on a Grand Adventure.  Their intended destination?  A crystal clear lake in the middle of an expired volcano.  But they did not get very far before Jolly said, how about a nap?  And Kitten said, yes, I think so!  So they took a slight detour to the outskirts of the Great Blue Cloud, and there they napped.

Mr. and Mr. Difficult in Purple Cloud

Jeeves and Farley have made many appearances in relatively few days on this site.  It’s that or listen to them complain.  They are world-class complainers.  I mean that in the nicest way, of course.

I can’t decide whether this whole adding-color-digitally thing is cheating.   In my defense I did not go straight to digital.  I fooled around with color in acrylics over the years.  Beasts and such, mainly.

Jillian is a thoughtful tyke and her sitter a terrific teller of tales, from memory. I believe this pic shows Jillian stealing a nap just after chapters one through six of “The Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Juster. Outstanding book. Seriously.

Fed Mr. & Mr. Difficult mushroom omelets while I fiddled with the color. It made me hungry.

Not sure about this one. Poor Jeeves appears to have 1. a sunburnt face, or 2. a chemically burnt face. Too dark and too red is my conclusion.

FYI:  Lest I be accused of animal abuse, Jeeves has neither a sunburn nor a chemical burn. He is in perfect health – although he ate way too many Katjes Saure Johannis-beeren before lunch.