Betty, an artist friend, has piqued my interest in botanical/natural science art by showing me her botanical drawings so I created this critter as a gift for my cousin. There's something very satisfying, straightforward, and pure about a drawing. A lot of my paintings are a bit like wandering around until you get someplace, but drawing is much less forgiving. If you overwork something or make a big mistake there's no going back. When I do an illustration for reproduction I will use white out or sometimes scan it and clean it up in Photoshop but for this, I wanted it to be right without any messing around or corrections. I really enjoyed doing it, got on a roll, and did about six other drawings as gifts. Dang! I just realized that I never scanned the other pieces. Just wrapped them up and mailed them off to avoid the holiday rush. Being too efficient can have its drawbacks...Been messing with my signature too, with this one being influenced by printmaker's chops. This drawing is small, 4x4 inches, ink pen on Arches 140 pound cold press watercolour paper.
