The Saracen's Head

Days 29 and 30: A place you want to go and Congratulations Banner

 Hip, Hip, Hurrah! We're done with the last days of the challenge!!!

Here are our pictures for Day 29: A place you want to go:

This is my picture of the Aran Islands, Ireland: Since I read Francie on the Run by Hilda Van Stockum(Irish, American and Dutch author), I have wanted to go to Ireland and in particular, I want to go to the Aran Islands. I must go down to the sea again, to the wild sea and the sky, and all I want is a tall ship and a star to steer her by......Now I've got sea fever again!

And here's Anna's picture: What do you know! It's the sea! I can just hear the mewing of the gulls,the pounding of the surf, the wind blowing and I can smell the salt air and the artificial waffles that you eat in the Chincoteague hotel....You might think we're elves the way we long for the sea!

And next is Lydia's picture: The hawkwatch at Braddock Bay, Hilton New York. We went to the Bay of Belfalas once and I think Lydia got to go to that wood platform and see the hawks flying over the Bay, but I'm not sure. She wants to go for the spring raptor migration. We all want to go to such wet places, "WATER! WATER!" (said Sam hoarsely).

And on to...The congratulation banners (The green flag of Rohan and the blue of Dol Amroth and...): Mine is first again: Me with the badly spelled banner proudly waving aloft and Mount Doom exploding in the distance as the eagle flies off with never mind who...I have thrown my pictures on the ground in triumph and scattered the pencils in the grass (not really) and wave the flag with glee, crying "Hooray! I can draw whatever I want!" Not that I disliked the challenge, o no, it was awfully fun!

Here's the picture drawn by Anna: She can spell. (pout pout) Hers is a cool, cool dragon! Mayhap Bard will shoot it with Black Arrow (and we'll all cry "Up with the bowmen, down with moneybags!") And I must say that the border is velly nice!

Now Lydia's is the coolest of the lot! And all her drawings are fluttering in the breeze - you can see (if you look closely) the one of Shadowfax and the Gryfalcon and the apple and the other stuff of that sort. Also note the Whooping Crane as the figure head!

Notice the gleeful smile as she throws all her drawings to the winds!

Thus endeth the post of the last days of the Third Age....O, bother! The last days of Pompeii....No good! The last days of the Age of Sail...NOOOO! Make a final effort...THE LAST DAYS OF THE DRAWING A DAY CHALLENGE!!!! Hooray! I said it!

A million thanks to Shealynn for hosting this fun challenge! Thank you, Shealynn!

So, goodbye now.... So here's a health to the company, and one to my lass, let's drink and be merry... for we may and might never all meet here again.

Posted by Mary Rose

Drawing Challenge Days 26, 27 & 28

 Something you don't like, Someone you love & Anything you'd like

First are our Dislikeable things: can't say I like Mordor! Now I've used up all my black watercolours.

Lydia's is a really terrible subject: An orc. Horrid old Lurtz with his bow. Ugh!

Mary Rose's is a black rider. Well! Such stuff we draw! That's what happens when you're supposed to draw something you don't like. Wasn't our idea.

Now for more pleasant pictures: next on the agenda is Someone you love.

I drew Daddy standing about on the mountaintop admiring the scenery with his favourite toy. Also some turkey vultures. No, there aren't really big black borders floating around the sky. Artistic license, see?

Mary Rose's is of the Blessed Mother.
 

And Lydia painted this super-duper picture of Kateri.

She has her new teddy bear, her funny white hat and The Silver Chair.

Day twenty-eight was anything you'd like: an easy thing to draw. These are only from yesterday!

Mary drew The Fellowship at The Bridge o' Khazad-Dum. Zowie! But why does everyone always say Moria, and then the bridge of Khazad-Dum?

I drew this semi-zago person on his horsie.

And Lydia's is of zago Shadowfax galumphing o'er the plains.With mountains in the background.

Mountains, Gandalf!

Posted by Anna Ruth

Drawing Challenge Days 23, 24 & 25

Something you need,  A couple, and Scenery 

As we have been rather busy of late (what with novels, the zago, and pie) we are very tardy in posting these, but they were done more or less on the right days.

Something you need, by me: Elizabeth Faustina (sometimes known as 29). I shan't tell how late Eliza stayed up to have her picture drawn. Too bad, it scarcely looks like her, being drawn in great haste. You could almost say it Degenerated into an Illegible Scrawl. Try to get that reference!

Mary Rose drew an epic depiction of a cup of tea with lots of quotations floating around. If you think people don't need tea, see the last quote. Ha!

But Lydia beat us all black and blue: her picture is much the best o' the lot!

Well, folks, time for day 24: A Couple

Lydia's picture is of these relations of ours. Ma and Pa, to be precise. Now, after you say "to be precise," someone should yell "don't!" but I do not remember where that is from myself, and shouldn't make references I don't even get.

Mine is of guess who. Oh,them! They are waiting for some stroke of doom!

Moral of the story: never draw Faramir with coloured pencil (I can do it lots better with graphite or pen). Never is a long word, Boromir. Oops, I said that last time! Maybe I should try Give them a moment, for pity's sake! Zago and a half! Anyways, back to the story: the background is graphite smudges. Properly, it should be done with a Dirty Tortillon, but I'm afraid I just smeared around with my finger.

Mary Rose drew this couple from some fairy tale called The Yellow Dwarf. I am not acquainted with them at all . I cannot even tell you what their names are. Whaa, boo hoo. Sniff. Sob, sob, sob.

And now for some Scenery!

This first bit of scenery is a river, by Mary Rose. Trees grow primly at the bends. Prolly it comes from haunt of coot and hern, too.

My picture was drawn very sloppily, I am sorry to say. A stone wall, some mimsy trees, purple mountains and a meadow. No! Not a Meadow! Anything but a Meadow! Don't you know that when I was a boy....

Lyd painted the view from the mountain. Little orange hawks and all. (Note: she painted this from memory) See the Ered Luin in the distance!

Well, thus ends this age long post.

Posted by Anna Ruth

Days 21 and 22: Something you want and Something you miss.

Well, here I present......My pictures.TA DA!

The first picture is Something you want: I drew Josiah, Lydia, Anna and I sitting on a log in the woods taking a short repast. Josiah used to take us on walks in the woods and they were quite jolly affairs. Around Christmas when there are lots of goodies, then you pretend that the cookies (which you bring along in your leather pouch) are wafers of the elves waybread (pepparkakor is the best kind for lembas) and that's just dandy.....

So anyways, that's what I want to do: go for a walk in the woods with pepparkakor lembas and we might ackshully get to do that since it's only a month till Christmas.   So that's that- on to the next picture.

Something you miss: My picture. I miss the sleep overs Lydia, Anna and I used to have. Lydia and I would  go and sleep over in Anna's room and we always had a big party simultaneously. The beginning thing was that we would enter and Anna would play Concerning Hobbits on the CD player and we danced about the room... What I drew was the speeches we would make: Anna is giving her speech while Lydia and I cheer and clap. Usually the party would end around two in the morning.

Here are Anna's pictures: The former (the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake) is Something you miss. Well, Anna misses the robins which come in the spring and nest in the tree right next to the house, obviously. Don't we all! No sweet leetle birdies chirping outside the window, no fledglings sitting on the deck rail...sob, sob, sob. Let's get on to a more cheerful subject (sniffle, sniffle, snrght).

Something you want: by Anna.  This is a picture of Anna and Lydia sitting outside in the dark and looking dolefully in their water bottles. Of course! Sam and Frodo, book six (thunderous cheers and hollering from the peanut gallery).  Yes, Anna is being Sam and looking in the water bottle, no doubt saying "Not much left, mister Frodo." At least, I think she's being Sam, I wasn't there at the time (I hadn't even heard the books) and so Lydia must be Frodo. WELL: Anna wants to play that fun game again (And use Pepperkakor as Lembas), and I want to too! I never got to play at being Sam and Frodo!

Here are Lydia's pictures: Something you want- a puppy, naturally! And she drew such a sweet puppy! She always wanted a mongrel, and this one is part collie (Myself, I would prefer a cocker spaniel and a tabby cat with a red leather collar). It's so cute!!!

It looks just as though it wants to follow you home from school, like in the stories.

And this is Something you miss: Lydia misses passenger pigeons, now extinct. I dare say she wishes she could see a cloud of passenger pigeons blotting out the sun, but it really is too bad, they are extinct! Extinct! Extinct! EXTINCT!!! Oh how sad....

Read the writing on the picture! Not one passenger pigeon alive-Hunted to extinction-A flock passing for three successive days...

 Well, I guess this is the end of my lengthy post. Goodbye, take care of yourselves and DON"T LEAVE THE PATH!!!

Posted by Mary Rose 

Drawing Challenge Days 19 & 20 Something New & Something Orange

These are from yesterday and the day before. Actually, we have become rather lazy about posting our pictures.

Something new: Mary Rose drew a peasant with a new bairne. Also a candlestick and a blue vase.   

My picture is of new grass, a new sheep, old birds, and middle-aged butterflies, flies without butter and a little girl. That thing in the lower right hand corner is a zago, and is a very new thing.

Lydia drew a sweet diddle baby in a polka-dot blanket. Wowee, wowee, ain't it not nifty?

Now it is time for all good men to come to the aid of their-o never mind! What I meant to say was: time for day twenty! Day 20 was something orange, in case you fergot. Mary Rose's picture is of Strider. Again. He is coming to the rescue with some flaming brands, obviously, but I shan't give away the plot any further today.

Mine is of a girl in a very orange frock standing on a hill with her puppy dog. Contrary to popular rumor, I had never planned to draw the eruption of Mount Doom.

She is wearing high buttoned shoes.

Lydia's orange thing is, of course, an Icterid. It is drawn in pencil and watercolours.

A, B, C, D, the cat jumped the sea

The cat jumped in the sea, my friend

How will this sad tale ever end?

Posted by Anna Ruth

Drawing Challenge Days 17 & 18

Here be Day the Seventeenth and Day the Eighteenth of Ye Drawing Challenge:

These were drawn on their proper days, it's just we didna post them.

Day 17 was Favorite Plant. Here is mine: Attempt at Black Maple in Autumn. 4 x 6"  I like fall trees, better yet fall trees against blue sky, better than that fall trees against blue sky with migrant raptors, but lack a day, I didn't put one in.

Here is Anna's: (lots more epic) Hers is in colored pencil and it is Evening Lychnis, or White Campion. I think it is considered a wayside weed, and we have it in the summer in the empty lots and such. We call it most often Simbelmyne, and think of Theoden King of Rohan.

The title is in Elvish letters, in case you don't recognize those orderly squiggles.

Last is Mary Rose's favorite plant: Athelas, or, in the vulgar, Kingsfoil. Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry and Strider (who has the plant) are sitting around about their boiling cauldron.

Day 18: Just a Doodle

Day 18 was mildly difficult, because how do you doodle on purpose?  It might have worked better if we were given math tests. Math tests inspire doodling.

Well, Mary Rose wins for doodliest doodle! Here are a lot princesses or peasant lasses, a harp, a sword-hilt, a couple  of the star glass, this and that.  

Here is Anna's, a sophisticated doodle; it is of course horses. Going Left. Also the little wee mannie is lost amongst the giant beasts, and is looking for the one that is just his size.

Last is mine: Bird doodle. This is a Whoopin' Crane and a whole pack of Sandhill Cranes. Acshully it is a particular Whooper- number 2-11. She was s'posed to be migrating with the ultralight-led class, but she got lost, and her radio transmitter didn't work, and she was gone for days, and they looked an' looked, and then someone found her with hundreds of wild Sandhills, and they couldn't catch her, and...

Oh, well.

-That is THE END of ye post-

posted by Lydia Grace (obviously)

Drawing Challenge Day 16: Inspiration

And now I present: our drawings of inspiring inspirations- Ladies and Gentlemen, here they are!!!!

This first is mine: a shelf of some of the most inspiring books I've read. From right to left-The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, The Adventures of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, The Fellowship of the Ring (loud clapping), The Two Towers (deafening cheers), The Return of the King (and the crowd goes wild!!!), The Magician's Nephew,The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Horse and his Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Last Battle and The Hobbit (or there and back again).

There! Now that I have introduced myself, I'd like to have some idea of what's going on. Hrghm. (Excuse me, but references just pop into my head at unexpected times) Well, there's my picture and we shall proceed with the others. Step this way...

Anna's drawing of a horse going left: A very nice picture. Anna seems to be inspired by horses, no wonder she draws them most of the time! Exquisite resemblance in the flesh tones! (I mean it!) I always liked the horse pictures Anna draws.

Lydia's: John James Audubon hastily writing in his diary. A very detailed picture (my favorite kind) and the birds on the wall are really good, and the various nature things littering the room- the dead bird on the desk, the leaf on the floor, the plant in the pot...All in all, it's an epic picture (and that you may tie to).

The kerosene lamp is the best part! The circle of light is very well done, as well as that quote: Birds were then as now... I drew, I looked on nature only, my days were happy beyond human conception.

And now I shall say goodbye and leave to write a chapter of NANO novel. So- "....Go, Fillan, now. Remember your message: Dwarves attacking the mountain village in a fortnight. And, as Gillian says, take care of yourself. Farewell."

Excerpt from my novel.

Posted by Mary Rose

Drawing Challenge Day 15: Family Picture

We are still one day behind in posting our pictures. Terrible state of affairs. Anyways, here is my picture o' us. Actually the skirt Mother is wearing in this picture doesn't exist.

We are all marching along without much of a background, just a whitewashed wall. But it took long enough even without trees and flowers and pigeons and daisies on the lawn.

In Mary Rose's picture we are depicted lounging about while Josiah plays the accordion (and Mother seems to be making dreadful faces at the mere thought of her knitting). (she can't actually knit)

Lyd drew us as epic black sillyhouettes going on an afternoon walk. She did it with her dip pen.

Well, folks, November is half over!

Posted by Anna Ruth

Drawing Challenge Day 14: Favorite Fairy Tale

Once Upon a Time...

Here are yesterday's pictures. I think some of us were working on them past midnight, though.

The day's challenge was a very jolly subject!

Here is Anna's drawing from The Princess Whom Nobody Could Silence, by P.C. Asbjornsen, whoever that  is.  We always talk about fairy-tale youngest sons or heroic simpletons (like Boots or Cinderlad or Little Fool Ivan) as Ashiepattle characters, but this is the real Ashiepattle, Ashiepattle hat and all.

He is holding the dead Magpie which he found and picked up, to the disgust of the Elder Brothers. He uses it in his win-the-princess-and-half-the-kingdom adventure. It's a rather standard fairy tale, but all the more amusing.

Mary Rose has drawn the Wise Woman, of course from The Wise Woman, or The Lost Princess, by George MacDonald. She did a really good swirling cloak as the Woman hastens away out of the castle:

"So quietly did the wise woman pass down the stair, that the king was all but persuaded he had only seen a shadow."

My picture is from The Goose Girl by the Brothers Grimm. It is not a particularly interesting tale, but I always liked it because of the good horse, Falada.

The Goose Girl is talking to the head of her faithful steed while little Conrad looks on scornfully. I did it with my dip pen and paint mixed with water because there seems to be scarcely a decent regular pen in the house, and we're possibly out of ink as well.

 

 Of course these are only some of our Favorite Fairy Tales. We've read heaps of them and heaps more that are Just a Variant, so it seems  we're bound to have half a dozen favorites each at least. Like The White Bird, and The Many-furred Creature, and Little Daylight, and The Black Bull of Norroway, and Little One Eye, Little Two Eyes, and Little Three Eyes, and Snow White and Rose Red and The Golden Bird, and never, never forget- The Little Humpbacked Horse! 

I want to illustrate more fairy tales. Maybe after November...

Oh, this is the great day when all 'Wrimos' are supposed to be halfway through their novels! Oh no, I better get writing.

Posted by Lydia

Drawing Challenge Day 13: A Comic

So, here are yesterday's comics. This is mine- it's called The Harping Princess. Basically a variation on the princess gets captured and is confined in the tower and the prince has to rescue her. Click to enlarge and read the writing. (The blocks are numbered in order.)

Edited to add: Okay, Pa says he can't read the writing, even if you enlarge. So we will type in the text:

1. If only my hair was a bit longer... 3. Alas! I'm almost 18 and I'm just cooped up in this tower! I'll probably end up an old maid. 4. There's a lot of junk in the corner- maybe I can find something to attract that man's attention. 5. A book. That's not even useful! 6. Let's check these things out in a better light. 7.Flip, flip, flip. (hours later) 8. Nothing good! A boot, books, sticks! Ugh! 9. And this is just more sticks...oh! A harp! I'm saved! 10. Thrum Thrum (a few hours after) 11. I never knew you were in here!

This next is Anna's:  Again, you might have to click to enlarge. Hers is lots better than mine 'cause it has Legolas and mine doesn't (shucks, he's my 4th favorite person!). I think it's really an amusing comical comic! Also- the mention of twenty coming up with butter- Lydia and Anna have a code of numbers for people in Lord of the Rings, but I don't know the code and it's top secret so you'll never know who twenty actually is.

1.Once upon a time...2.L:Look out! You've near burned that un! 3.G:I know what I'm about, you pointy-eared elf princeling. 4.G: Aaaaah! Help! 5.G: Ow! Ow! My hand's burnt! 6. Owwwww...7. L: I told you so! 8. L: Phim B:Don't be so cruel. Be a good lad and get some butter. 9.L: LAD? I bet I'm older'n YOU! 10. I was 40 last birthday! 11. L: Only 40? I'm so old I don't remember how old I am. At least 400, or maybe 500, or...12. A: Stop arguing! Here comes twenty with butter for your scorched paw, and what will he think of us? 13.A: You ought to know better. 14: Epilogue: (Gandy with buttered paw)(and we never find out who twenty is!)

Here is Lydia's, last but not least. So! Legolas and Aragorn on the top of the mountain watching birds! What else did you expect from Lydia? Hers is really cool too, because it has Legolas and Aragorn (I feel so left out of the LOTR comics!). Click to enlarge if you want to see the text better.

One fine October day... by LGTK with some lines and characters by JRR Tolkien. 1.on sign: Audubon Hawkwatch An important bird area. 3. Official Hawk Counter: The birding's good today. Hey, folks. 5.Yes, it is an  eagle, a hunting eagle...What is that, Legolas? Is it, as I think, an eagle? 6. That pointy-eared chap is pretty good - we ought to recruit him for a hawk spotter. Hm, I dunno. 7. A: We will not start until it is fully dark. L: I wonder that that forbodes. It is far from the mountains. 8. Official Hawk Counter: Hey- it doesn't forbode anything. It's just migrating. That's why it's far from its usual range. 11. L: Look! There is the eagle again! He is very high. He seems to be flying now away from this land back to the south. He is going with great speed. Look! 12. A: No, not even my eyes can see him, my good Legolas. He must be far aloft indeed. I wonder what is his errand- Official Hawk Counter: Hey! I told ya- they're migrating! 13.A-If he is the same bird that I have seen before. Official Hawk Counter: Past the point. Hm. 14. And no it isn't the same bird. The first was a third-year Bald, and that second was a second-year Golden! 15. See? The elves are over rated. Wouldn't know a Buteo from a bull's foot.

"Wouldn't know a buteo from a bull's foot!" Well!

Pointy eared chap....hmmm, hmmm, that's how people know elves to be elves. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm(OK, I'm not really an ent!)

Well, bye now-As he looked back he saw Richard standing on the wall, leaning on the battlements and waving like a boy. "Farewell!" He shouted, "Never forget old Richard the horseman, though I dare say you'll meet better men on your travels."  "I'll never forget you in a thousand years, Richard! Goodbye!"

(Excerpt from my NANO novel)

Posted by Mary Rose

Drawing Challenge Days 11 & 12:Turning Point In Your Life & Most Recent Accomplishment

 (These are from yesterday and the day before)

Part one (day 11): Turning point in your life:

This picture signifies me learning how to read. I'm s'post to be about five. (I didn't read The Hobbit and Narnia 'til I was six, unlike some people.)

This is a turning point by Mary: she is depicted reading Shakespeare-that made her want to write stuff.
 

Lydia drew herself's First Communion. Yes that is what she did.

Part two(day 12): Most recent accomplishment:

This picture is of several of my most recent accomplishments, actually. Or maybe none of them. I haven't decided yet. It is sort of complicated.

Options:

a) I accomplished drawing this picture

b) I mastered the art of drawing the tower of Cirith Ungol (more or less)

c) We (myself included) accomplished making up a spoof on The Rattlin' Bog that is about the pass of Cirith Ungol

d) I've used up half my new 4B sketching pencil

e) I climbed all the way up this tower

Mary Rose's picture is of her making an epic illuminated manuscript of The Leaves Were Long, The Grass Was Green, The Hemlock Umbels Tall and Fair (That book she's hiding under the counter is the Fellowship) for Mother's birthday present.

Lyd's accomplishment is having written six chapters of her (NANOWRIMO) novel. Apparently it gives her a headache.

Never is a long word, Boromir.
Posted By Anna Ruth

Drawing Challenge Day 10: Favorite Candy

 

I have drawn plain ol' boring peppermint sticks. Not even the kind you have to drop on the floor or whack with a hammer. Some are busted in pieces, very sad:

Actually, they aren't just any peppermint sticks, they're Bob's Sweet Stripes soft peppermint, and we always get them in our Christmas stockings. (pen & colored pencil, 'bout 5 x 6")

Mary Rose drew an ATC of us pulling taffy. (It's our homemade taffy we make in the summertime. It is very good to eat, and just as good to pull, except for when it fails and is hard as a rock or else too squishy) The title of the picture also says that we are cracking jokes. When we make taffy it can be an uproarious business, what with slopping butter all over our hands, unsticking ourselves, getting sticky globs on the floor, and pinching each other's bits to see whose is the best pulled:

Last is Anna's picture from Poppins the Book. Peppermint candy! Bargain prices! All of it made of Finest Sugar!  Pen and watercolour, which is why the paper is that shape. Unfortunately, we never got to ride through the sky on peppermint horses...

Jane, Michael, John, and Barbara, as far as I know. The problem with peppermint horses is that you can't eat them or they object. 

Really a good picture.

 

{The End}

posted by Lydia Grace

Drawing Challenge Day 9: Favorite TV Show

                                                                                                                     (Please note: These are yesterday's pictures)     

Ridiculous! We don't watch TV!   

Oh well. We waive that point. We do not press it. We look over it. Anyways, once upon a time we used to watch the Nature show once a week and (Ha ha ha!) once it was about horses, so I just drew a horse (going left). (8 1/2 by 11 as usual. And yes, I will draw my favorite candy that big. You just wait.)  

Pen horse:
    

 But, Lydia obviously preferred the time it had to do with gyrfalcons, cuz that's what she painted:

Wow, it's nifty.  (It's also 9x12" and in watercolor.)

Mary Rose drew these ATC-sized barn owls who are somewhere in between Mel and Sidney and Molly and McGee. (Owl cams are the nearest thing to TV shows.)                  

Posted by Anna Ruth

Drawing Challenge Day 8: Favorite Animated Character

Back again! We are still on our old habit of posting a day after we drew our pictures! Today is Favourite Animated Characters- That's hard, cruel hard! (my favorite quote) (No, I like 'Here's a pretty hobbit skin to wrap an elven princeling in' better.) Anyways, as I was saying, yesterday's challenge was hard. We don't really watch animated movies; once a year the little kids might watch Charlie Brown or the Grinch if they're really good.

Anna drew the Grinch: it really looks just like him! The yellow eyes and evil grin are legit! Really authentic! And the dog looks properly bewildered. The santy claus suit is really great!

This is Lydia's Schroeder, playing his little pianny. Hers is really legit too (if you want to know, that is a college expression Josiah told us about, meaning authentic (I think)) The piano is just the right shape and Snoopy has the right happy expression. It's altogether cool and animated looking.

Last is mine- Linus and the Blue Blanket. The reason I like him is because of the blue blanket, and the way he sucks his thumb. Do you like the animated blue sky and puffy white clouds? Bright animated blue.

Take Notice: My drawing is another ATC, 3 & 1/2  x 2 & 1/2 in., Anna's is an 11 x 8 1/2 in. drawing and Lydia's is about five inches square. Just in case you want  know...

Posted by Mary Rose

Drawing Challenge Day 7: Draw Your Favorite Word

Here are yesterday's pictures of Favorite Words (it seems we're getting into a bad habit of posting everything the day after we draw it). Ours are all different sizes this time.

Mary Rose did the word 'yrch' which signifies orcs  in Elvish. It comes into FotR twice, I think, always at the worst of times.

It's done on an ATC, 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches big. Important Note: This does not mean that she likes orcs! She likes the word yrch.

Anna's is 8 1/2 by 11", as all her others have been. Drawn in ink and Green Pencil. It's a reference to Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, which is a very strange book, but very good. We're  fond of it -  we had Mum read it aloud to us twice in a row last year. We even had a Thursday birthday tea. But the words- 

 Syme was talking to Wilks: '"...my favorite word is 'coeval'. What's yours?" "Do stop playing the goat,"..."You don't know how serious this is." "'Lush', too," Said Syme, shaking his head sagaciously, "We must have 'lush'. - Word applied to grass, don't you know?"' 

Here is my word- 8 1/2 by 3 1/2". I've been doing a Bird Biology course in school and learning loads of new bird words, which I think are awful nifty.

The Suboscines are the 'songbirds' or 'perching birds' who are made so that they can't really sing complicated songs. For example: A  sparrow (an oscine)  can sing something like "Maids, maids, maids, put on your tea kettle -ettle -ettle" but then a flycatcher (suboscine)  can only say "PIZ-za". Well, I can't help it if it's bizarre, I like it.

So the word is decorated with Suboscines (I almost got a bird from every family in the suborder, but then I couldn't find a picture of a Tapaculo or a Gnateater).

Coming up next- something we'd never draw otherwise, Favorite Animated Character!!! Well, it should be interesting.

Posted by Lydia