Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Day 326 ~ Use the world of amphibians as inspiration.

Continuing with the carousel idea from yesterday...a carousel frog. This is done in watercolor and colored pencil and is about 8" wide.

First I needed to make sure I knew what an amphibian is. For example, a turtle is not an amphibian. It is a reptile. So no carousel turtle this go round.

An amphibian is a cold-blooded vertebrate that thrives in a freshwater habitat. The blue coloration on this particular amphibian is loosely based on the Dyeing Poison Frog, Dendrobates tintorius (is that a great name or what?), whom you would run into if you were wandering around South America somewhere. He's only slightly over 1" in size in real life and he and his mate both take on the job of protecting their eggs and can be very aggressive when defending their territory, according to a wonderful Natural History book I have published by Smithsonian.

But this carousel Dyeing Poison Frog (ha!) is nice and would love to have you as a passenger.

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