October 17, 2011

      This is my completed drawing of a Grey Tree Frog sitting on a magnolia leaf. Grey Tree Frog is really their name, as unimaginative as it sounds. I would have named this kind a Lichen Frog, since they come in grey and grey-green, and really seem to be imitating the lichen found on rocks and trees. Besides, lichen is a lovely sounding word. 
    This graphite B2 and B4 drawing was done from a photo taken of a young frog I found in my back yard. Sitting like this, with his feet tucked tightly in under himself, the other thing I took him for just at first was a strange fungus on the leaf.
    For me, drawing the fuzzier, more out-of-focus things that are very near or very far is more difficult. Drawing a whole lot of nothing (because there is nothing defined as any given identifiable object) and making it seem like it might be something if you could just see it better is also difficult. I think that even though you'd expect that any old fuzzy doodle would do, the human eye-brain duo actually expects certain typical shapes, and probably more importantly, has scale expectations that must not be violated or else things start to jump out at you as just wrong!