My Elephant Thinks I'm Wonderful

A pastel illustration for my children's book class last year, for a poem by Ken Nesbitt:

"My Elephant Thinks I'm Wonderful"

My elephant thinks I'm wonderful.

My elephant thinks I'm cool.

My elephant hangs around with me

and follows me to school.

My elephant likes the way I look.

He thinks I'm fun and smart.

He thinks I'm kind and generous

and have a terrific heart.

My elephant thinks I'm brave and bold.

He's proud of my strength and guts.

But mostly he likes the way I smell.

My elephant thinks I'm nuts.

glub glub glub

Some quick sketches made with ballpoint pen while visiting the Baltimore Aquarium.

Fish have such interesting shapes and movements. Though I enjoy drawing all sorts of animals, if I have an afternoon in a zoo or aquarium, I would probably spend most of it in front of the displays of strange and lovely fish!

Yay!

So I thought I'd start things off by showing a drawing that represents myself in some way, an introduction, if you will. This piece is an oldie-but-goodie... I made this in 2007, for a drawing class when I studied abroad in Florence, Italy. The assignment was to create a self portrait with some sort of animal... and I love whales!

This was made with watercolor pencil on 27.5" x 30" toned paper.