Jammin' Zabbles

Watercolor & Ink
9x12 Smooth Bristol Paper
© Frances "Yote" Coursey
05/20/2009, -DD-

A gift art piece for a colleague of mine here in Iraq, Sgt Zabala. Some of us call him Zabbles, which I thought would make for a cute name for a ferret too. Sgt Zabala plays guitar and wears glasses, hense the accessories.

After asking my mom to name the next ferret she gets Zabbles and was told, "You get a ferret and name it Zabbles! No more animals after these ones pass in my house!", I decided to just draw one. And this is what came up. A cinnamon ferret jamming to a guitar. The songs "Let it Rock" and "I Wanna Be a Rock Star" come to mind everytime I look at it.

I'm exceptionally proud of this picture. This was entirely done out of watercolors with no colored pencils, no quoache paints, none of the usual heavy mixed mediums I've been known to use in the past. It has ink to define the outlines (I'm going to try and get more colored ink pens... I think it would have come out more stunning if I didn't have just stark black ink) and only a dabble of white acrylic to help with the guitar's highlights.

Once again, pencil marks left on purpose. It gives character to the art piece, in my oppinion.

I think I'll continue this way of medium use in later pieces. I think it makes for an excellent result if illustrating children's books consisting of animals or insects.