By: sruble,
on 12/9/2010
I was thinking about a girl starting to make a snowman when I wondered what would happen if a baby polar bear crossed her path.
I'd like to think they might be friends, that is if the mama bear or the girl's mother are not around.
By: sruble,
on 5/25/2010
After I sketched this out, it occurred to me that Dr. Seuss had already drawn a cat wearing a hat. I decided to finish the picture anyway.
These cats are obviously on their way to an outdoor festival. Why else would they be wearing hats? Please visit sruble.com to learn more about my art and projects, or my blog to see more recent art.
By: sruble,
on 3/10/2010
I’ve been painting tiny pictures lately (see the elephant here and the bunnies here), in order to fit painting for fun into my schedule. My third tiny painting was a girl blowing a bubble with her bubblegum. I broke out my watercolors and colored pencils and painted a picture so horrible that I had to rip it up. Seriously. All it takes to ruin a small watercolor painting is a couple of misplaced brush strokes. However, I still liked the sketch, so I made the bubblegum girl into a digital illustration. The image is 2″ x 2″ like the paintings.
I like how she turned out, but I still wanted to paint something. A picture of a cow blowing a bubblegum bubble seemed like a fun take on the original, and worked out well, because it fits several art prompts all at once (see list below the picture). I used watercolor and colored pencil to make the image. I’m happy with the way both pictures turned out, but I have to say, the more I look at them, the weirder they look. Of course, if you looked at a photograph showing a side view of someone blowing a bubblegum bubble, that would probably look weird after a while, too.
The CBIG prompt this month is fantasy – a cow blowing bubblegum bubbles is definitely fantasy! Bubblegum Girl also works for fantasy. She wants to blow the biggest bubble ever and win the national bubblegum bubble blowing contest (which they actually have – I saw it on TV a couple of years ago).
The Watercolor Wednesdays prompt for last week was to create a greeting card image for a child – the bubblegum sort of looks like a speech balloon, where the cow could say, “Happy Birthday!” Bubblegum Girl also works for this week’s prompt, to illustrate a favorite toy or game … not that gum qualifies as a toy, but trying to blow the biggest bubble could be a game, so I think that counts (or at least it works for me – I went to art school; I can justify anything).
The Illustration Friday prompt this week is brave – that cow is really brave to be blowing bubblegum bubbles. What if it pops and goes all over her face? Bubblegum Girl also works for brave. She knows what will happen if the bubble as big as her head pops!
Are tiny paintings the next big thing? Maybe not, but I’m having fun with them 
By: sruble,
on 2/23/2010
Sometimes when I watch the Olympics, I wonder about things, like do elephants have their own Olympic games? And if they do, would they have the same events as our Olympics? Here’s the first event that I imagined from their winter games – Elephant Figure Skating:
By: sruble,
on 10/29/2009
I decided to do a favorite character that I like to draw. I love drawing simple ghosts like these from last week, but for this prompt I decided to do a mummy, which is also fun. This is a more traditional mummy than the ones I usually do, so I played with texture in the background and added the little dog. Oh No!
By: sruble,
on 10/21/2009
I painted this one with cut up sponges (except the vampire). I painted the vampire with brushes to set him apart from the rest of the class. I thought the texture would be fun, and it is, except that the painting was too small (8.5 x 11) or the sponges were too big to make it look the way I wanted it to. Still, it's something I might play around with again in the future, or use brushes to try to re-create the texture.
Eddie was out sick the day Ms. MacDonald's class decided to dress up as farm animals for the class party. Everyone forgot to tell Eddie when he came back.
Ms. MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
The chicken costume is my favorite.
By: sruble,
on 10/15/2009
Here's my painting for The Colors of Fall. Fall Kids / Fall Colors This is another attempt at layering. I like how it turned out, but I think I’ll do a bit more planning next time. Want to see how I got to the finished painting? I posted the process on my blog :)
By: sruble,
on 10/7/2009
I painted Young Frankenstein with his first monster, FrankenTeddy, and his little dog Frankie. I think Young Frankenstein would have worn PJs with his lab coat over them. Young Frankenstein and FrankenTeddy
By: sruble,
on 10/5/2009
Happy October - fun topics this month :) I’m in a Halloweeny kind of mood already! Here's my pumpkin madness painting. It's mostly watercolor, with a bit of acrylic and pencil too.
Kitty Ghost
By: sruble,
on 9/16/2009
Last week, I said I wanted to do a crayon resist for Watercolor Wednesdays this week, so I did. I’ve always loved crayon resist, because you never quite know how it’s going to turn out. I even learned a few things (or re-learned them, since I’m sure I knew them when I was 5), like: white crayons first, then black, otherwise the black will smear (duh). So here it is, Sheila and her best friend Amanda talking about school lunch at Zombie High: Brains for lunch!
By: sruble,
on 9/9/2009
These two paintings for Watercolor Wednesdays and the CBIG blog are from a YA zombie graphic novel I’m working on, starring Sheila the Zombie Cheerleader. The graphic novel isn’t in watercolor, but I thought I’d do some zombie watercolors this month because Watercolor Wednesdays has school prompts every week. Sheila’s first day back at school was yesterday. (She wouldn’t let me post her first day picture last week. If I did, she said she’d, “eat my brains!”) Sheila’s best friend Amanda suffered through the first day with her. Here’s their first day picture, which Sheila said I could post today: Sheila the Zombie Cheerleader's first day of school Sheila and Amanda are talking about the new teacher in the next picture: Zombie High staff changes ... The black line for both images is acrylic paint and the color is watercolor crayon. I love watercolor crayons because they make me feel like a kid again. I get to color with crayons, then paint. Fun! Maybe next week I’ll do crayon resist … or maybe not. Halloween is coming, and ghosts are a whole lot of fun for crayon resist. 
By: sruble,
on 8/21/2009
I haven't been around for a while because life got in the way, but I'm back this week and am planning to stick around again for a while. I've looked through all the posts I've missed in the last few months. Wow! You guys have been producing some really excellent work! Congratulations to Vanessa for being named member of the year!!
For this image, I painted a chicken dancing, using waterlogged acrylic. The effect is very similar to what my watercolor looks like. 
Next week I'm going to try a new watercolor technique (new to me, old technique). If It works, I'll post it.
By: sruble,
on 4/22/2009
Apparently I have a harder time drawing fairies than elephants. The Watercolor Wednesday challenge this week was really a challenge (it was actually more of a challenge with human fairies than elephant ones). I won't show the human version - yikes! That's headed to the shredder tomorrow.
Here are my 2 tries with elephant fairies. The first one wasn't working at all, so I put it aside and painted the second one. Then I felt bad for the first one, went back and added and reworked it, and now I'm not sure which one I like better. Which one do you like best?
Earth Day Elephant Fairy and Superhero
Earth Day Elephant Fairy Too
I love the pattern in the sky. Very cool.
Thanks Michelle!
Hi Sruble,
I always enjoy the texture you create with your markers(?).
Thanks Carla! The black line is marker, but the rest is watercolor (it looks more watercolor-ish in real life than it does in the scan).
great texture & great expressions!