IF - toy

I did this toy as an invitation for my sons last birthday. At first it looked like a water lily, but by pushing it out it turned into a frog and you could find the invitation rolled into its tongue. Of course most of the children kept it as a toy afterwards.
As a child I didn`t like to play with dolls (which was then almost the only choice for girls) at all. I wanted a car so badly instead, but I never got one.
What I really liked though was LEGO, because you only need two bricks to make it a dog or a chair or whatever comes into your mind. I still like playing with it and passed this love on to my son, so that there are entire sundays spent building with LEGO.

IF - Cultivate

For this weeks topic I post a drawing of a Southern wood ant because they (like all other ants) cultivate real colonies of aphids to milk their honeydew.

Besides it is part of the current project to be shown on my homepage 40 Days - 20 Eggs:

Thinking of Easter what do you think of first (apart from easterbunnies)?

Eggs

Nicely decorated hen’s eggs or maybe even quail eggs.

Or what other eggs are there? Which animals do lay eggs at all?

You can see this on my homepage during the 40 days from Ash Wednesday till Easter:

alternately on one day you can see an egg to learn the next day whose egg that is.

Have a nice guess!

Speaking of 40 days till Easter: if you’re counting properly there are 46 days!

Has there been a mistake in counting?

No, the six sundays were ignored.

And on my homepage there’s no fasting – at least not for the eyes.

IF - stir

What more does it take to stop this lethal technology?


Initially I wanted to draw swirling coffee in a cup, but with the events that are going on in Japan since friday it seemed to me to be almost offensive to ignore the stir they cause in my mind.

IF - warning

Well I think this entry is self-explainig: since I have started to participate in Illustration Friday I have posted illustrations for almost every topic and only missed the chance when confronted with severe obstacles.

Besides I wanted to do something similar to warnings on cigarette packs (Not that I am smoking!).

I actually didn't draw last week because I am preparing the next special on my homepage which you can see from the following wednesday till Easter.

Curious to see my Easter Surprise? Then go here. You can see something new every day for 40 days.

IF- Layer II

This is my second entry for this week's topic. I just had to post it too because of the many layers a rose blossom consists of and also because of the almost endless layers in this drawing it took to create the desired effect of real petals and their velvety surface. It is also part of my Valentine's Day Postcard.

Curious to see my Easter Surprise? Go to my homepage from  march 10 until easter.

IF - layer

Reading this weeks topic 'layer' I immediately remembered a stay at the YMCA in Chicago early in the 90s. The basin we had in our room had a dripping faucet. It must have been dripping already for years because the porcelain of the basin was peeling off in layers. It was incredible. I never new that porcelain even could peel like that.

Curious to see my Easter Surprise? Go to my homepage from  march 10 until easter.

IF - sweater

“Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.”  Ambrose Bierce

No, you haven't got the wrong link: this is not chicken (from a few weeks ago) but sweater.

Because I am currently preparing an Easter Special for my homepage which - naturally - circles around eggs, I immediately thought of a hen breeding eggs. But unfortunately she doesn't feel very confident of her abilities, so to be on the safe side, she decides to dress her eggs in sweaters. Poor little ones: now they really must be sweating...