Lion Down on the Ground

A Need For Gardens by Richard Brautigan

To tell you the truth, this particular Brautigan short story from Revenge of the Lawn still has me thinking "What the heck?" But in a good way, of course.

I don't mind tell you something about the story this time, since it can only prepare you a little, haha.

ALRIGHT. So, every year the characters in this story try to bury a lion. Why? I don't know. The Annual Lion Burial has been going on since the lion was itty-bitty. At first it scared and surprised him, but eventually he got used to it and just sat through the process looking rather bored.

What happens is every time they dig, the hole ends up being too small. So only a portion on the lion is covered. Then they give up until next year.

Yep!

About the illustration:
Well, this one was done with that Pentel V5 pen as well. But I also went over it with some Prismacolor pencils and some Copic markers. It's an overhead view of the partially-buried lion.

Update:
Ok, so I just googled "lion" and saw that they don't have big pink noses. Woops!

For The Birds

The Wild Birds of Heaven by Richard Brautigan

I'm still reading Revenge of the Lawn and have already found a couple more illustration inspirations! Since the stories are quite short, I won't talk too much about what goes on. I'll just say that in this booksketch, a man is having his shadow removed by a blacksmith.

Yep. You read that correctly. Why it was removed is something you'll just have to find out for yourself, eh?

On a side note, I love how placid he is during the whole process. The guy goes to buy a new television and ends up having his shadow replaced...Oh my, I think I might have said too much!

About the illustration:
Haha, this one was just done with an ordinary Pentel V5 pen. I forgot my usual art pens at home and this was all I had on me!

Geese Louise!

Revenge of the Lawn by Richard Brautigan

"Revenge of the Lawn" is the titular short story from a collection by the same name. I've read a few so far (there are QUITE a few in the collection), and this was the most entertaining one yet. The main bit of humor is about how a once-beautiful lawn has become cursed and barren through neglect, and now inflicts harm upon one of the characters, through various bizarre ways.

In wonderful Brautigan-fashion, a gaggle of geese stumble upon a moonshiner's mash (which I assume is the leftover pulp of apple cider or whatever they ferment) and consume it heartily.

This, of course, gets them drunker than the proverbial skunk. There are no skunks in the story, however.

So the geese pass out, and the moonshiner finds them and assumes they are dead. So she plucks them and puts 'em in her basement. Well, the geese wake up and freak one upon finding themselves naked and hung-over.

Wonderful situation, right? I thought so.

About the illustration:
Done all in watercolor. Quick watercolor. I probably should have pencilled it out a little first, though, eh? Haha, it came out alright. I scanned it and tried to take out the paper wrinkles in Photoshop, but it was just too much of a task because the midrange gets all blown out. And all attempts ended up looking strange. But this way, it looks like the geese are kind of weighing down the middle of a blanket or something, haha.