Drawing As Easy As ABC: Step-by-Step Pictures to Create and Color by John Bigwood
My rating: 4/5 cats
WELCOME TO APRIL PROJECT!!
since i’m stuck in the house for the foreseeable future, DRAWINGS! with this book, you use a capital or lowercase letter as a skeleton and you build a creature around it WHAT WILL HAPPEN LET’S FIND OUT!
Aa
these animals do not correspond to the featured letter, unless you wanna call A an ape and a an adorable lemur. WHICH I DO!
Bb
B is bird and b is bat, but i swear this is a coincidence that does not pan out for the rest of the book because obviously i have looked ahead to see what awaits me.
ALSO, OPEN FORUM: is there something else i should be doing here on the day-to-day to make it more EXCITING for everyone??
C
there is only one creature for this letter, i guess because a C is a c is a C. BUT i noticed today that each of these pages has a TITLE riffing off the base letter, so allow me to belatedly introduce you to AN ANXIOUS GORILLA, AN ADVENTUROUS LEMUR, A BASHFUL PUFFIN, A BAFFLED BAT and this one, A CHEERFUL BUMBLEBEE! for the record, i don’t see anything about that bat suggesting bafflement, but who am i to interpret the innermost feelings of a bat?
Dd
A DAPPER TOUCAN, A DROWSY OSTRICH. again, i’m not sure who’s on adjective duty here, but i do know that the last four animals have ALSO had closed eyes, so MAYBE that ostrich is drowsy, but hell, if signifiers have become meaningless thru interchangeability, it could just as easily be BAFFLED, CHEERFUL, OR DAPPER, right? THE WORLD IS A BROKEN PLACE! ALL THE NY BARS WERE CLOSED ON ST PATRICK’S DAY AND I DON’T HAVE TO LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE CROSSING THE 6 LANES OF QUEENS BOULEVARD ANYMORE AND THE ONLY STREET NOISE I HEAR ALL DAY LONG ARE SIRENS AND HELICOPTERS. but i mean, yeah, i’m fine with calling that bird drowsy.
Ee
AN EASYGOING KOALA, AN ENIGMATIC CHAMELEON. the chameleon is both WIDE AWAKE and also my favorite drawing so far. i have been baking and cooking all day gotta get back to it, sorry for the quickie!
F
there is only one f-creature, although it’s technically two, and this is in fact titled TWO FROSTY PENGUINS. although i would have chosen to call them FATIGUED.
Gg
A GREEDY BEAVER, A GOLDEN LION. i’d hate to think that eating ONE log would get you called ‘greedy.’ greg’s mom, for example, swallows FAR more logs than that, so to honor her, this is now known as GREG’S MOM’S BEAVER! and that’s ONE GOOFY LION!
Hh
A HANDSOME POLAR BEAR, A HAPPY GIRAFFE. while i don’t disagree that that is one handsome polar bear (scarves are where it’s at), i’m becoming a little suspicious about this closed-eye trend and starting to doubt that all of these animals are “just sleeping.” have they been drugged? have they already been taxidermied and this person is drawing whimsical little cartoons of animals they have slaughtered and posed and added dapper little scarves to? who will investigate the matter of THE HYPNOTIZED POLAR BEAR and THE HEBETUDINOUS GIRAFFE?
I
only one i (one SLEEPY eye) for some reason, and it is AN INQUISITIVE MEERKAT even though it looks like it is sleepwalking and not even a little bit inquisitive but today has been such a terrible day that it doesn’t surprise me that language no longer has meaning and i give up sorry
J
A JOLLY ELEPHANT
i mean, come on—there’s not even a HINT of a smile on this pachyderm, let alone anything approaching jollity. this is, at best, A JADED ELEPHANT.
K
A KOOKY FOX! another one that’s only one, with no lowercase. and it’s another closed-eye one, which is getting OLD! WAKE UP, ANIMALS! as for “KOOKY,” it is a stupid word, but i’ll let it stand for now. nothing good starts with that letter. nothing good at all.
this one is for GREG, and i say HAPPY EASTER EVE TO YOU!
Ll
A LEAPING KANGAROO, A LIVELY LLAMA.
A LYING LABELER!
that kangaroo is leaping not at all and that llama LIKE EVERY OTHER ANIMAL IN THIS BOOK is either sound asleep or dead. why does this book hate drawing open eyeballs? i call these A LAZY KANGAROO, A LIFELESS LLAMA!
Mm
A MAJESTIC OWL, A MAD MOOSE and here we are again—qualities attributed to animals who are in no way exhibiting those qualities and are instead better defined as A MOTIONLESS OWL and A MELLOW MOOSE.
Nn
A NOBLE TIGER, A NAUGHTY MONKEY
my tiger is pretty crummy, but it’s actually my second attempt and the only one i bothered taking a second pass at. this is my first:
a very NARROW tiger. the only reason i bothered with a redo was that theirs was so badass:
i guess i need to go back to kindergarten and learn how to make a proper N. but my monkey’s all right, i guess. my NARCISSISTIC MONKEY.
**apologies for taking a couple of days off from this project to marinate in all the sad and helpless feelings that have growen up in me like MOLD from being cooped up and cut off from the world. i will be better-disciplined going forward. because this MATTERS**
O
AN OCEANIC TURTLE. it might be. i have forgotten what the ocean even is. i mean, apart from seeing it on the news as florida gallantly opens up its beaches in the middle of a pandemic to people who had better not be planning to make any trips to new york where i can’t even pop into a store for a loaf of bread without the full mask-and-glove ensemble because i’m not about to spend the rest of my life like this, you dig, florida? you don’t have to stay home, apparently, but don’t come here. keep your cooties and your OPIATED turtles contained within your own dangly-genital state because MANNERS.
P
A PLAYFUL CHEETAH. it might be. i have forgotten what “play” is. jk, i’m not gonna wallow in my isolation-woe NO MORE. but again with these no-eyeball animals. THIS CHEETAH IS PEACEFUL. PLACATED. POISED. PENSIVE. PERHAPS POOPING.
A QUIRKY SNAIL, A QUAINT PEACOCK
HOLY COW THAT SNAIL HAS EYEBALLS! i mean, of all the animals to finally depict open-eyed, it seems weird to pick one with such tiny ‘uns, but again, i have so little contact with the outside world these days, i don’t know what goes on out there anymore. but this is one QUICK-WITTED SNAIL! and a QUIET (100% sleeping) PEACOCK.
Rr
A RELAXED MOUSE, A RAVENOUS HIPPO. ok, i am willing to concede that that mouse is RELAXED. but if that hippo is RAVENOUS, it had better gobble up that bird TOOT SWEET before it loses what little energy is has left and slips into a hunger-coma and starts to look…exactly like this o no too late. we’ll call it RESTFUL, for the kids. RESTFUL ON A FARM WITH LOTS OF SHEEP TO PLAY WITH.
S
A SASSY FLAMINGO no. a SLEEPING flamingo. a SLEEPY flamingo. a SLUMBERING, SNOOZING, SEDATED, SNORING, SACKED OUT, SOMNOLENT, SLUGGISH, STUPOROUS, SLEEP-SMACKED FRIGGIN’ FLAMINGO. that one was too easy. LGM.
Tt
A TIRED BEAR, A TRIUMPHANT ZEBRA
i second the tired bear but question how THE SAME EXACT FACIAL EXPRESSION reads as triumph on a zebra. EVERYONE IS TIRED. I AM TIRED. ALL OF THE ANIMALS ARE TIRED. DOING NOTHING IS SURPRISINGLY EXHAUSTING.
U
AN UPSIDE DOWN SLOTH
it’s kind of hard to argue with this one, right? and calling a sloth UNAWAKE seems too obvious/redundant so UPSIDE DOWN it is!
V
A VALIANT EAGLE
ACK! that bird has EYES! that VICIOUS, VILLAINOUS, VILE creature can SEE ME! with all the people stuck inside now, the birds are getting bold. i see them walking in unconcerned groups down the middle of the road, they have been coming to my fire escape to make their enigmatic coos and clucks, they have pooped all over the subway-stair shortcut that no one’s bothering to clean anymore. THEY ARE WAVE TWO. mark my words.
W
A WAILING WOLF
although i am still disturbed by how few eyeballs the animals in this book have, collectively, i’m okay with this guy shutting his little eyes against the force of his howl and i’m also okay with his w-word. i am so agreeable today! i give up the fight against it all—bring on the blinded animals cuz life is equus.
X
AN X-FACTOR BADGER
i hate everything about this one. the stoopid glasses (probably covering already-closed eyes), the use of the word (phrase?) X-FACTOR, the—okay, REVISION: i hate TWO things about this one. everything just feels worse than it is these days. irritation is amplified. apologies for overreacting.
Y
A YOUTHFUL SQUIRREL
a YAWN of a squirrel. also, i don’t know WHY this is such a bad drawing, on letter 25 of 26. you’d think i would have developed some skills along the way, but this is a terrible squirrel and i’m sorry. if this is the first squirrel you have ever seen, take note: they do not look this misshapen in real life. i sorry.
Z
A ZANY RHINO. which you will surely agree, is in fact A ZZZZZZZZ-ING RHINO.
AND THAT IS THE END OF THAT PROJECT!…nearly.
testing rossdavidh’s hypothesis that if they did open their eyes, these animals would all have big, sparkly manga eyes, LET’S FIND OUT!!
here are all of our formerly close’d-eye pals:
THE END!
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