Katie's Seafood Market is on a pier in Galveston, Texas. And right next door is Katie's Seafood House where a person can eat seafood from the market. If you don't want to eat there, well, you can trot next door and choose your own fresh seafood. I do both.

The market has a door that customers walk through and, directly opposite, is a large door that, I'm assuming because I've never seen it happen, fish and shrimp and other ocean yummies are unloaded from the boats into the market. But boats aren't always at the back door. As I mentioned, I've not seen one there, though I'm sure I arrive much later in the day than the boats. Who I have seen are pelicans.

Pelicans wait at the backdoor, or front door, depends on your perspective, for the people selling and cleaning the fish to toss a head or some guts, or other pelican approved delicacies.  

I took the above photo while waiting to purchase seafood on the people side of the counter.

People and pelicans doing the same thing! What. That makes me giggle, and take a picture.

Look at Pelican's raised foot. Caught mid-walk. Arrested by the sight of the fish.  And that is how the Pelican Goes to Katie's pieces came to be. I thought the pieces were finished, but when I looked at them something was missing. I looked at the picture again. Ah ha! Fish. 

Some Pelican progress photos. 

These pieces were unexpected and unplanned. I don't mean that I didn't have an idea of the steps I'd take in creating them. That I did have a loose plan, an idea, once I knew I would make them. But I didn't plan to make these at all.

They come from three different instance all in an online art group I participate in, The Push Past Ordinary Society of Creative Dreamers.

First a live sketch exercise focusing on hands. If you're like me, you might avoid drawing hands. Instead of being scared or intimidated by the exercise, or, more accurately, to get rid of the fear and intimidation, I decided to focus on the fingernails and to go for the tone of spooky. I figured spooky could include distortion, which I was sure my hand sketches would have. Whether or not any of them would be described as spooky, I don't know. But what did happen is that I got away from feeling scared and intimidated. Some of those sketches are below.

In the middle is my first pinkie promise. 

The second was from images of Iris Apfel and her glorious bangled arms. My online art group looks at an artist a month and have a creative theme each month. With the creative theme of fashion we looked at Iris Apfel, who I had seen but hadn't really considered. Her bangles and and bracelets are a visual treat. She also wears great layered necklaces. One fascination for me is that just the thought of wearing all of that on my body makes me uncomfortable. I'd feel strangled and weighted down, but the fact that I'd never wear such excess makes it more interesting to me, and, despite my personal preference not to have too much on my arms or neck, the bracelets look cool. So, I elongated the pinkie promise arms and added bunches of bracelets. 

The third inspiration was a post in the online group about blind contour drawing using both hands simultaneously. Oh my. What fun. I tried it. I loved it. I continued doing it. Now, not everything lends itself to being drawn with two hands at once, at least not for me. A face, yes. Hands, no. So I did blind contour drawing but with one hand. Mostly my dominate hand. If I get stuck finding myself trying to make the hands look like real hands, I'll switch to drawing with my left hand. Using the blind contour drawing incorporates lines, distortion, looseness, and a bit of the random. All of which I love. 

Below are the other Pinkie Promises in this series in various stages of progress.