Drifter

It's raining, it's pouring, & I'm imagining a little oddment hitching a ride along the gutter... life is but a dream.

Photoshop with text from a Ahn's New American Interpreter, 1923

B is for Bake-Neko

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts! is again inspired by Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yakō.

The bake-neko is a giant ghost-cat. According to The Obakemono Project, "...bake-neko could exceed normal cats in size by orders of magnitude, reaching their enormous arms in through doors looking for human prey like an average feline pawing around in a mousehole...."

Her Odd Materials No. 16

Acrylic on a torn-out portion of an illustration from St. Nicholas magazine, August 1920, ~4"x5"

Radiciform

Continuing the cross-section theme: this devious fellow snuggles quietly down into the loam & remains perfectly still until a root borer happens along-- then suddenly snaps to life & gobbles him up!

Mysterious are the ways of nature. If you think such extreme camouflage is unlikely, take a look at this real-life amazingness.

Also, mysterious are the ways of Google. An image search for radiciform turns up the most peculiarly random assortment of stuff. ?????

Edit: I must say this IF prompt has brought out some of the coolest entries I've seen in a while! Definitely worth perusing if you haven't already.

Kinesthesia

Gone are the days when the average gnome was content to spend his golden years happily puttering about the garden. Today's modern senior gnome stays buff in the gym, diligently swelling his biceps instead of his belly.

Curiotype K, Photoshop with text from Websters New Collegiate Dictionary 1949

p.s. I know this is a little late for "Swell" but better late than never, I hope.

Julaceous

Ever since I first encountered pussy willows as a little girl I've had a soft spot for catkins. This particular (Curiotypical) species appears indecisive until one examines its terminal floret.

(Click if you dare.)

Photoshop with text from Gray's Introduction to Structural & Systemic Botany, 1876

Dimorphous Dance

Vive la Différence!

Photoshop with text from an old dictionary.

Curiotype No. 4

Claviculate

Another of my obsessions: tendrils! How handy that "C" was up next in my Curiotype series.

Photoshop with text from an old dictionary.

Buccal Cavity

Oh my, this week's IF word surely hit home. I'd already begun this image, & in fact had already begun lecturing myself about my obsession with detail... I have a tendency not to see the forest for the lichen, so to speak.

I obsess about a lot of things actually, but detail is probably at the top of the list. It gets in my way as often as not, but it's a deeply ingrained part of my personality. Usually I try to fight it, but I let it take the reins on this piece. (Except that, to tell the truth, I could easily keep tweaking it for another 3 hours or more, making changes that were virtually invisible to the eye. But I have a lot of other things that need doing, so this will have to be it.)

I used to have a related obsession with putting hidden words in every picture. I let that one sneak back in here too.

This is the second in a series I'm calling Curiotype.

Photoshop with text from an old dictionary. I kind of veered off from the word that inspired this originally: Buccal, having to do with the cheeks or the cavity of the mouth.

21-Gun Salute

In a gesture of pride for its number, 21, this oddment is showing off its appropriately numerous biceps (count them if you don't believe me).

Coney Camouflage

Another shy character... found him hiding in my painting-in-progress.

Photoshop with acrylic textures.

Home Sweet Home

Stuck in the house again...

Another tidbit from the painting I'm working on.

Photoshop, text & acrylic.

Bottleblossom

Yep, this is from that painting!

Digital (Photoshop) with paint & text

See it in action (kindasorta) here

Ecosystem

Yet another sketch for the aforementioned painting!

Digital with elements from antique maps

Caution: Slow Painter

Another sketch for that multi-character painting. You know how artists sometimes sneak self-portraits into crowd scenes?

Digital with elements from old maps.

Hatchling

Which came first?

This is a sketch for a character that might make it into that painting I keep talking about.

Digital (with paint & print thrown in), ~2"x4"

Messenger

Yet another figure from the multi-character painting I'm working on.

Digital on various Photoshopped painted papers.

Unidentified Flying Oddment

It's a bird-- it's a plane-- it's a bit of Zoorobotany from my sketchbook!

Ball-point pen, brush marker & white gel-pen on brown paper, Photoshopically soaring across a page from an antique songbook, about 4x5"

The Triplets of Peaville

Oddment 2 is another figure from the multi-character painting I'm working on. (The background of the actual painting will be very different, a surreal landscape.)

Photoshop, scanned painted paper & a selection from an old German-English dictionary.

Welcome to Oddments & Curiosities!

Because it's my birthday & I'm allowed to do as I like, I'm daring myself to post an odd little creature of some kind on every odd day until my next birthday, or until I go completely mad, whichever comes first! Consider this an experiment in predictable unpredictability.

I hope you will add your field notes on these curious specimens. Feel free to speculate on their characteristics, cheer me on in my voyage of discovery, or hasten my madness by taunting me relentlessly, as you prefer.

Oddment 1 is a digital sketch for two of the characters in a large (for me) multi-character painting I'm working on. Photoshop with some acrylic-painty stuff thrown in.

p.s. Do you think I should name these things or merely catalog them?