Swordwhale Walking: illustration, webcomic, stories, photojourneys, videos
  • launch here
  • art & stories
    • black horses
    • Sea Ponies of Chincoteague
    • Just Animals
    • playing with water
    • Tradigital illustration
    • environmental education >
      • Christmas Magic Mural 2020
      • animal alphabet and counting murals
      • Assateague ponies
      • the salamander room
      • more touch room ocean
      • more: touch room forest
      • wetland
      • wetland art
      • greenleaf
      • reptile week murals: Nixon Park
    • just animals: photography
    • Tales of the E.L.F. >
      • That Darn Elf, a musing or two
      • cast and crew
      • I dreamed of black horses
      • fanfiction: If Wishes Were Elves...
      • Skyfire
      • Leyover and Bardic Circle
      • Following Raven
      • The Merrow's Cap >
        • Merrows Cap credits
      • Manannan's Horses
      • Fins
      • fandom >
        • Radagast's Rabbit Ride
        • the Lone Ranger >
          • LOLs and Trolls
          • but wait, there's Moore, and Silverheels
          • Hi Yo Silver
        • black panthers and night furies
        • tales of Middle Earth >
          • Mirthwood
          • Loth-LOL-ien >
            • Im-LOL-dris
            • Smirkwood
            • well, that coulda' been worse
        • Sherlocked
        • catz and doges on fandom
        • Faithful Sidekicks
    • murals
    • scribblings
    • coloring pages
  • mermaid tales
    • Gramma Swordwhale's Mermaid Blog >
      • how to mermaid
      • merfolk on the Chesapeake
      • my life as a mermaid
    • privateers and pumpkins and ponies oh my!
    • stupid gravity (the adventures of a mermaid on Eastern Neck Is.) >
      • stupid gravity credits
    • stupid gravity: the search for sea glass >
      • stupid gravity: the search for sea glass: credits
    • Stupid Gravity: Misty Cloudy Windy Stormy Augh! >
      • Misty Stormy credits
    • Stupid Gravity: the search for mermaids
    • mermaids, Moana and Maui, beached on Christmas Eve
    • horseshoe crabs forever
    • stupid gravity: hot hot hot >
      • hot hot hot credits
  • Chincoteague
    • back to the islands 2021 >
      • Ponies 2021
    • identify that pony
    • chincoteague pony art
    • Fall Roundup Oct 2019
    • Chincoteague 2019
    • pookas pumpkins and swamp ponies
    • Chincoteague Carousel
    • Chincoteague November 2018
    • the 3rd Sea Voyage of Makenuk's Fin
    • wild horses and kayaks 2017
    • wild ponies in camp
    • North Beach
    • on island time
    • saltwater cowboys
    • Chincoteague
    • Christmas by the Sea
    • island ponies
    • Ace and Unci revolt
    • beached
    • running water in between
    • Assateague Light
    • the Haunted Lagoon
  • crafty stuff
    • photo your toys >
      • how to photograph Breyers in the wild
      • Lokigator and Throg's Epic Adventure
      • Sam and Bucky's Excellent Adventure
      • Mando and Grogu
      • paint and wet snow pants
      • Legolas and Hwin, snow
      • derps (or how not to photograph Breyers and others)
      • Wonder Horse repaint
      • wild Breyers >
        • printable prints and downloads
        • water horses
        • beach Breyers
        • Lotus Legolas and Arod
        • teeny tiny Breyers
        • backyard Breyers and Schleichs
        • vintage breyers
        • Hartland Horses
        • Black Horses
      • educational display
      • Schleich and Safari Faeries
      • North beached
      • more model horses
      • beach party
      • advenatureData
      • Finding Hank
      • Otterlock and Hedgejawn >
        • Hounded in Baskerville
      • how to photograph your dragon
    • Rich Toy hobby horse rehab
    • ModPodge rules
    • paint pours
    • flour salt clay
    • chalk paint
    • rock it: paint rocks and use or lose them
    • faerie gardens >
      • more faerie gardens
      • faerie festival at Spoutwood Farm
    • sea this tutu (and make)
    • I found Dory
    • knit me a mermaid, or chicken, or Hei Hei
    • sea treasures
    • sea glass
    • sea horses
    • rehabbing horse epic fail >
      • do you wanna build a snow pony?
      • do you wanna build a sand pony?
      • Barbie horse gets a makeover
    • mermaid saddles
    • Yule Laugh, Yule Cry... >
      • a Brandywine Christmas
    • Uncle Bob's Toys >
      • Uncle Bob's Toys 2016
      • more: Uncle Bob's Crafts
      • the Adventures of Mortimer
  • adventures
    • Go Play Outside
    • Nature Deficit Disorder
    • I heart Nature
    • autumn light
    • cats
    • mushing 101 >
      • dogs on wheels >
        • Autumn Run on Wheels
      • dogsled
      • dogsledding: running on snow! >
        • Groundhog Day
      • kids and dawgs: first sled run
      • Klondike Derby
      • Sled Dogs and Pirate Ships
      • Christmas Day Run: Rail Trail
      • Horses and Huskies: when predator and prey share the trail
      • Schipperke doo dah >
        • Runnin' with the Big Dogs
        • Hobbit Husky
      • women who run with the wolves
      • Play Time
      • wubba wubba
      • New Year's Dog Day
      • Team Swordwhale
    • trains, sleddogs, and horses oh my!
    • butterscotch and sprinkles
    • horses >
      • horse reference for art
      • ponies small but mighty
      • First Horse: Saraf
      • the Wild Black Mare
      • between thunder and lightning
      • Goliath, Nevada Mustang
      • Yataalii
    • Planet Water >
      • Planet fish tank
      • planet toadpool
      • Planet Pond
      • Planet Stream
      • Planet River
      • Planet Marsh
      • Planet Ocean
      • Planet Water Bird >
        • Planet Water Bird: gulls
      • Planet turtle
      • Planet water snake
      • planet amphibian
    • kayak! >
      • blue boat home
      • kayaking 101
      • kayaking Assateague and Chincoteague
      • how to train your dragonfly
      • Chasing Raven
      • the Susquehanna River >
        • the Rock Garden >
          • return to the Rock Garden
        • Conewago Dreamin'
        • the Conejehola Flats
        • Thunderbird Island (petroglyphs on the Susquehanna)
        • to the White Lady and Beyond
      • Calvert Cliffs fossils
      • Sassafras River Lotus Paddle >
        • Return to the Sassafras
        • sassafras river 2015
        • sassafras paddle 20160814
        • Sassafras River 2017
        • Sassafras river 2018
      • Eastern Neck Island >
        • winter marsh, winter beach
        • Eastern Neck Island: under the supermoon
        • more Eastern Neck Island
      • Pinchot Park
      • Lake Marburg >
        • where are the manatees?
        • ...and the dolphins???
        • macros and SAVs
        • Lake Marburg 2018
        • how to be a kayaking Gramma
    • beached
    • dive in! (SCUBA) >
      • Gourd of the Rings
    • mid Atlantic seashells
    • longship company >
      • December sail
      • Sae Hrafn at Oakley
    • pirates and privateers >
      • Sailing 101
      • Schooner Sultana 1768
      • Capt John Smith Shallop
      • Pride of Baltimore II
      • Kalmar Nyckel
      • downrigging 2010 >
        • Chestertown autumn
        • Downrigging Weekend 2014
        • Downrigging 2015
        • Downrigging 2016
        • Downrigging 2017
        • downrigging 2018: pink tardis
        • Downrigging 2019
      • privateer weekend
    • horseshoe crabs and red knots >
      • horseshoe crab spawn 2021
      • slaughter beach
      • horseshoe crabs and semipalmated sandpipers 2019
    • surfboards and watchtowers: Cape Henlopen >
      • beached
      • Watching Whales >
        • Watching Whales...again
    • Seadogs: Newfoundland water trials
    • wind hounds
    • wild things! >
      • baltimore aquarium
      • there's a hummer in the garage...ceiling ...
      • critter cam
      • sky walking
      • leaf-fall
    • The Adventures of the Good Ship Fearaf
    • the incredibly dead blog page
  • art class
    • framing 101
    • watercolor: how to
    • sip n paints
    • acrylic painting 101
    • wildlife art class
    • Santa, You're Doomed
    • (drawing) horses 101 >
      • horse color 101
      • gaits
      • ponies in motion
      • tack
      • Draw: a horse
    • dogs and wolves
    • go ahead, draw a pirate ship
    • anthropomorphism (cartoon animals and stuff)
    • the Little Kids Page of Big Ideas
    • mural: how to >
      • Gabriel's Whale
      • stuff you need
      • drawing (mural)
      • drawing mural 2
      • painting
      • mural jungle
      • mural bat cave
      • mural cats
      • mural ocean
      • mural arctic
      • mural leaf smacking
      • watershed mural
    • crayons and colored pencils
    • palettes
  • wait wait! let me get the camera!
  • who perpetrated all this???
    • swordbroad


Ah, if only it were as simple to get the image out of my head and onto the paper as it is for my young Elven illusionist at the top of the page here. Just wave your hands, say the magic words and the image appears. It's a little more complicated for most of us, so here are some ideas on how to make it less annoying and more fun. The PDFs, and links to other pages, below will, I hope, show you how I did some of the pieces here, and how you can have fun with watercolor, wildlife sketching and other illustration.



click here for art class
click on the raven guy to the right...
click here for scribblings

Scribblings

Stuff from the sketchbook. Dolphins, martial artists, ravens, wolves, sled dogs, horses, grackles fishing, baby burrfish, mystery blobs found in the swamp, and other fodder for the imagination. A sketchbook is a necessary tool for any artist; recording what you see for later use in creating a finished piece, practicing anatomy. It's also a great tool for putting you wholy in the moment; focusing on what's in front of you.

​click on the horse...

Picture

Horses

I grew up in the day of Sam Savitt, Wesley Dennis, and other professional artists who knew what a horse looked like. I also grew up with horses. Today... ugh. No one's ever seen a horse. Here's some help for artists, whether beginners or pros. Click on the horse sketch above. 

For more, check out my many Pinterest boards on horses: great artists, artists who screwed up, colors, breeds, gear etc. 
https://www.pinterest.com/swordwhale/

​

Picture

Dogs and Wolves

Reference and how-tos for drawing canines. Click the pic above.

Crayons, Colored Pencils, and Other High Tech Tools

Although watercolor and tradigital are my favorite media, I sometimes use other media; Prismacolor pencils, pastels, crayons, even squashed rocks. Here's a few examples.
click here for crayons and colored pencils page

Art Classes

I have done classes for Nixon County Park, Jacobus PA, and Manheim Twp Rec Dept and others.

If you are near York PA,  I can come do a class for your group.

Specialties are animals, wildlife, watercolor (it's easy, really!), acrylic. Email me swordwhale@yahoo.com.
prismacolor horse portrait: young grey mustang
click here to go to Blue Hound Farm



Idea Page for Little Kids

A few ideas to spark the creative side of your pre-schooler; for parents, babysitters and others. Messy, not so messy, using recycled wonders, jello, soap, finger paint, salt and flour and other stuff. Click on Gabriel's Fish!
Gabriel's Fish: click to go to Little Kids/big Ideas



The Complete Landlubber's Guide to Watercolor

(it's easy, really... stuff you need, stuff you need to know, all on this page:
click on the medicine wheel and check out the PDFs below...

click here for more...
watercolor_how_to_2009.pdf
File Size: 1427 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

watercolor_tour_2009.pdf
File Size: 4048 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

crayons and colored pencils
(and other high tech art tools)

Picture
click to go to the page



So go ahead, draw a pirate ship...

A step by step look at how I did these watercolor/acrylic/Photoshop illustrations of the Pride of Baltimore II, a reproduction of a privateer of the War of 1812. Click on Pride to go to the secret page.
original watercolor illustration
variation using watercolor and Photoshop painting



Mural Class

So your realtor painted all the walls of your new house one of the forty-two shades between hospital white and  curdled cream. Or little Kristen has outgrown the Painfully Pink Princess Decor. Oh, what to do with those walls!

Polar Bears. Lifesized Killer Whales (my personal favorite). Some Fruit Bats. Perhaps Kaa (the thirty foot python) from The Jungle Books (Kipling, where he was a teacher, not Disney, where he was a villain). The York County Park System has allowed me to smear paint on a few of their walls, for educational purposes. Cramming a lifesized (100 foot) blue whale into a 20 foot room is a challenge (perspective is my friend), but lifesized whales, or a whole rainforest in your bedroom, can create a kind of connection that is very different from a small picture in a book, or a DVD on a TV sized screen. 

You too can create landscapes, seascapes, jungles, prairies, faerie tales and (for that horse-crazy 12 year old) a whole stable of her very own equines. It's not as hard at it looks. Click on the pics below to take you to further pages that show you how it can be done.
Gabriel's Whale
touch room:forest
touch room:ocean
Manheim Twp Rec Dept Mural Class

...one more career for that 12" fashion doll...

All it takes is the recycle bin, hot glue and fence wire... click here for more...
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