Mitch Smith Creative

No art for me today, featuring my 10-Year-Old grandson's drawings, that are pretty amazing.

A Whitetail Deer buck in pen and ink with some pencil shading I did for a card.I used to do a lot of black and white art for the magazine I used to work for as not all of the pages were produced in color due to cost savings, so I had to learn to substitute color for shades and textures.

For this I chose to do a watercolor on a page from a book written in Chinese (I think). It is just an imagined Beta Fish or Siamese Fighting Fish as they are also known as.

I like to put different spins on the yin and the yang in some of my art. I like the black and white duality of the symbol and also what it means. It represents the ancient Chinese philosophy concepts of dualism, where two opposite yet complementary forces—dark/passive (yin) and light/active (yang)—interact to create harmony in the universe. Gosh knows we could use some additional harmony. I have thought about it as being like shady and sunny parts of a forest, illustrating that all things exist in constant change, interdependence, and balance, such as shadow and light, night and day, female and male, or stillness and movement. In this case also, the Black-capped Chickadee is an almost black and white bird that connects well to duality in nature coloring.

Some playful cat art for a birthday card for one of the first family members with a Spring birthday.

The Green Jay (Cyanocorax luxuosus) is found in southern Texas, Mexico, and northern Central America. Interestingly, they have been observed using sticks as tools to extract insects from tree bark. Drawing for the March 2026 prompt. I will put the reference photo in the comments.

The Coyote (Canis latrans) of Native American folklore embodies the "sacred" trickster, blurring the lines between animal and human natures, creator and destroyer, and wise teacher and fool. Chaos, death, and mischief often follow him through his mythological world.

The Spotted Gar (Lepisosteus oculatus). A North American fish patterned with dark spots on its body and sporting an elongated mouthful of needle-like teeth. The smallest of 7 gar species found in North America, they still grow to 2–3 ft in size.

A Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius). They are found in the dense humid forests of the Pacific Northwest. A member of the Thrush Family, like the similar American Robin but far more elusive, usually feeding on the ground among dense thickets.

Obviously, some cartoon birthday card art.