Saturday, April 21, 2012

illustration friday (heights--sort of)



The new Illustration Friday prompt is "heights," but oddly enough, the first thing the word brought to my mind was tadpoles. I think I was remembering a mysterious incident reported on the news last spring about tadpoles falling from the sky. There were all kinds of theories, of course, but I am satisfied with the theory that they fell from a bird's mouth (a pelican, maybe) that happened to be flying overhead. Well, once my mind got hold of the idea of tadpoles, I had to get it out of my system before I could go on to paint something more appropriate to the prompt. So I present you with my first tadpole etegami of the season. I painted it with my brand-new, sparkly "metallic" gansai paints, but you can't tell it from the scanned image. Too bad. It quotes from a funny Japanese children's song about where tadpoles come from. "Tadpoles are the children of frogs, not the grandchildren of catfish..."

frog eggs

11 comments:

  1. It does look like a catfish! I never thought about that. I remember hearing about frogs raining from the sky and puzzling scientists, but not tadpoles! He's a wonderful little guy.

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  2. Frogs eggs,hmmm,reminds me I haven't eaten tapioca for a while ;)

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  3. Again I ask, who can make a tadpole look kind of cute and frog eggs look lovely? You are amazing !

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  4. 空から、魚がふってきた!という、新聞記事を読んだことあります。どこの国だったのか覚えていませんが。
    おたまじゃくしの絵を描いた記憶がありません。
    おもしろい題材ですね。わたしもちょっとやってみたくなりますが、ここでは、おたまじゃくしみたことないですーー。残念。

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  5. Oh yee, that would totally creep me out seeing tadpoles from the sky or worse falling on me. That will scar me for life! Hahaha. I always love the way you illustrate a theme so succinctly. I love the eggs! I have an etegami postcard in my office. I see it everyday and it makes me smile. Thank you for that again. Have a great weekend or week, in your case. Keep on creating!

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  6. I really like the misty line work that you get with this medium.

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  7. A beautiful tadpole! Strange, putting those words together, but true!!

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  8. Used to watch tadpoles by the hour. Stroking the paddle softly through lazy sunripple water looking for the deposits, soft round clear universes all clustered around the base of a cattail, black centre promise of movement, weight, future. Your drawing captures that adventuresome phase I so identified with - when I KNEW I could do anything - if only I had the arms and legs to do it WITH. Great post. Always look forward to these.

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  9. I'm wondering what the title of the Japanese children song is

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    Replies
    1. The title of the song is the first line of the song: Otamajakushi wa kaeru no ko オタマジャクシはカエルのの子

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