tissues for mooses. meese. something.

now that i have your full attention with that intriguing heading (ha!), let me explain myself.

today i'm featuring the artwork of the fabulous Kelly Bastow, whose blog title on Tumblr (where i found out about her) is... MOOSEKLEENEX. i don't know the meaning behind it, but i'm sure it's important in some way. yes.

anyway, Kelly is an incredible illustrator, something which i discovered after perusing her Tumblr page for a short few minutes (i mean, i perused her page forever, but i discovered that she was brilliant in the first couple minutes), and so i had to share some of my favourite illustrations and cartoons with y'all :)

(oh, and just so you know, all sources can be reached by clicking on the images)

does this not look amazing? heavenly? sublime? all of the above?

i'm familiar with this feeling :)

hey - something i'm actually doing! i'll post about it on Sunday, so check back then to see what i mean ;)

"The string between them grew incredibly long, so long it had to be extended with many other strings tied together: the wind of his yo-yo, the pull from her talking doll, the twine that had fastened his father's diary, the waxy string that had kept her grandmother's pearls around her neck and off the floor, the thread that had separated his great-uncle's childhood quilt from a pile of rags. Contained within everything they shared with one another were the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, and the quilt. They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less string."

(from the story of the Sixth Borough in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)

if it were, i'd be such a sinner... :|

so do i! ...hee.


familiar with this feeling, too :|


yay for all kinds of different trees!


my daily struggle at varsity, haha...


and now i'm thinking of Brave! :)


oh, hi, cute.


only the story of my life.




profiles. yes.

oh, and SIMPLE PLEASURES IN LIFE...















alriiiiight, now we're talking.


my favourite thing about this illustration is the owl's unimpressed expression... just bein' honest here.

 and finally:

so, there you have it, folks - i'm positive that you'll agree that Kelly Bastow is a phenomenal artist, and i reckon you should love her art as much as i do!

:)

illustration caturday

eep - i'm just gonna get this week's caturday post in! today i thought i'd showcase some of the awesome kitty-inspired illustrations i've found on the web :)

first off is Cat vs Human, the brainchild of the super-talented Yasmine Surovec. Yasmine is a self-confessed cat lady and illustrates many of the classic moments experienced by cat owners worldwide. observe:

(this has Roo written all over it! after those few seconds she starts mewling to high heaven. Gimli LOVES a good belly scratch though :) )

well, that's true! ;)

and then Gemma Correll's "Cats of the World" is awesome...

...aaaand finally, we come to Meowoodle... a site where artists/illustrators illustrate their furry friends.

[ Michu by Mario Torres ]

[ Rufus by Rachael Smith ]

(particularly cute cause our family's first cat's name was Rufus... aw!)

[ Loki by Chelsea Conboy ]

typical Roo behaviour...

[ Tomo Marinovich by Erik Marinovich ]

more typical Roo behaviour.

[ Stanley by Emily McDowell ]

[ Zelda by Scott Waters ]

[ Bollie by Edwin Denouden ]

[ Ramona by Daniela Hasse ]

and finally...

[ Kiley by Ryan Clark ]

happy caturday, y'all - goodnight!

anthropo-what?

i've got to start an art section on this blog. first i blogged about the lovely Sirin Thada, then there was the marvellous Mirtle... and today, i have to share Liz Climo's work with you.

i came across her cartoons after my dear friend Natalie posted a link to one of her images that had made it onto 9GAG... this image, to be precise.

thankfully her web address was still intact at the bottom of the image, so i quickly hopped on over to her page... and got hooked. majorly, majorly hooked.

she has a few non-animal cartoons over at her site (and yes, i went through all 12 pages to check... don't look at me like that, i'm on holiday!) but for the most part, she draws furry (and some not-so-furry) friends saying and doing the darnedest things.

now, let's be clear. anthropomorphism (when animals or other non-human things are portrayed as possessing human qualities or as displaying human behaviour) can be irritating. MAJORLY irritating. my first few encounters with this kind of thing were frustrating for me, mostly (i think) because the people who created the memes/stories/whatever i'd seen in which animals were anthropomorphised were so patronising towards the critters they portrayed.

but these cartoons? nope, i don't think they're condescending in the slightest - they're just cute (and for the most part remarkably funny)! here are a few of my remaining favourites:

groundhog surprise party

and it looks pretty smart, though...

the issue with not having fingers

wannabe-hipster fennec foxes

the poor little foxes just wanna look cool!

"king godzilla"

these poor little penguins always seem to be at a disadvantage...

not so fun.

sorry, little guy, but your plan's a bit flawed.

this is pretty much how i feel whenever i see male baboons... ha.

gee whizz, Mom.

SUPERSQUIRREL!

probably cause of his "hey girl" pick-up lines. that Gosling's got all the moves.

silly lemming. (sorry for the, erm, cuss. but i couldn't not share it...)

baaahahahahaah! Charlotte's Web for the win :)

good on you, Greg! what a buddy.

yeeeeah... a Hannah move right there.

thief!

how to give a mouse a heart attack.

patience exemplified!

...and a very scary Christmas.

now, this one i particularly love and have to make special mention of, because it makes me think of Chris.

the caption Liz gave it was "forced affection" and Chris can attest to the fact that i (like Little-Mr-Dino here) am a nefarious forced-attention-seeker, always trying to wriggle my way into his arms when we're watching something. thankfully, he's sweet and just laughs at me and lets me cuddle ;)


and another one that makes me think of Chris...

ONOES TICKLES!!!

don't you agree with me - isn't Liz's work amazing? which do you like the best? :D