Category: animals

animals, dogs, Illustrations, simple photoshop, Tablet Drawing

drawing dogs–Fenway

Michele B. Naquaiya

For a while, I’ve decided to do some digital drawings of dogs. This is Fenway and I saw his photo on my friend, Melinda Dalke‘s site. She said ok go ahead and draw him, so here he is. Every dog has a special personality and I thought he was adorable. The way he cocks his head and his eyes are pretty captivating.
This is the first completely digital sketch so I’ve learned a lot about which are the best brushes to use. He has a lot of yellow but in real life his colors are much more subtle. I used hand drawn lines to add a little more texture. Here he is on my products.

animals, dogs, dogs, horses, cats, Illustrations, Odd Little Stories

Staffordshire called Trixie

Michele B. Naquaiya

Here is my sweet and very smart old pup “Trixie”. I rescued her in our early days in California. It was in 1976 in the San Fernando Valley. There were a bunch of unruly boys in the neighborhood playing mean games with her. Putting meat on a rope and hanging it from a tree. They set up a lever/pulley system to amuse themselves. She would grab on to the meat and they would hoist her up the tree and as she locked her jaws, they partied. I stole her and she was our rescue dog for a few years after that. I took her everywhere with me: shopping and to work too. She was my little guard dog when I worked in Culver City. When I had my first son, she was wonderful with the baby.

We had another dog at the time that the veterinarian suggested we find a home for. I remember him saying that in some situations, dogs cant accept the new baby. The new baby was more than the Labrador could handle. So I gave the lab away because they were fighting. It was dangerous but I took care of it right away. When we moved to the country, it was great for a while but she disappeared one night. She showed up a few days later; hungry, tired, very dirty. I tried everything to keep her but she kept going out into the hills and then she just disappeared. A few weeks after she left, one morning I took my binoculars and aimed towards the distant rolling hills. I saw her. She had taken up with 3 wild dogs and they were hunting together. My heart was broken. I loved her so and knew now she would never come back. I think of her still. I think of her a lot. I miss you sweet Trixie. You could not help being the dog you were. There was nothing I could do. Here is the digital drawing of her.

animals, Illustrations, kids, t-shirt design, whimsy

2 sheep friendship neighbors

Michele B. Naquaiya

I’ve been working on this friendship theme for a while now. Here is another idea with a different color palette from a pen and ink sketch of 2 barnyard sheep. This theme won’t let go of me. I love barnyard animals, and simple designs. I love playing with new colors and fun brushes. I also am using some new fonts just for kids. This one is Doodly: loving it and all the glyphs included too. I enjoy putting words together in unexpected ways. The next variation will be half as simple as this one….which I feel is painterly. I’m looking for something more graphic. Don’t you just love to play with art? It’s kind of like cooking. A little of this and some of that. Here it is on a tee

animals, birds, Illustrations, t-shirt design

Rooster crows at sunrise

Michele B. Naquaiya
rooster is shown here without text

One time in my life I had a rooster who adopted me in CA. He would fly up and sleep in the trees at night. We had a lot of coyotes there. I never made a pen for him because aside from the tons of coyotes around, I had dogs who would love to catch him too. He would come in the mornings and I would leave seed out for him while the dogs were inside. We lived together this way for almost a year. He moved across the mountain a year later to somebody else’s place. I always had a lot of respect for him but felt I could never invite him in…I was sure he would be eaten. What a survivor!

He he is with text on my tee shirt shop.

animals, fantasy illustration, Pen and Ink Drawing, whimsy

Two Fish with Bubbles

Michele B. Naquaiya

These two fantasy fish are pen and ink line art drawings done the old fashioned way .,..with a crowquill pen and Higgins black drawing ink. Of course, they are mirrored images of themselves in photoshop.

I digitally colored them today as the original felt a little plain in just black and white. This is an untraditional color palette for fish in the sea but I think it’s exciting. Well, why not have some fun. The picture it will be next to is of a soft grey/blue/turquoise palette and they hopefully will work together well. Maybe my fish are a little on the whacky side? They would like that.

I originally just wanted to add some bubbles as they are supposed to be saying HI to each other and then look what happened. I think the eyeballs are better placed in the original, so I may go back and change it again. I got carried away coloring. I thought they needed eyebrows too. Ha. Here’s the original black and white. This is a page from my little picture book BFF Best Friends Forever, which I have been working on for a few weeks.