Illustrations For The Kitchen

Jenny Mathew's Tiny Drawings are exactly that. Drawings done sometimes only larger than a postage stamp. How does she do it? I don't know. I watch her do it sometimes. When she started out with the intention of doing an illustration every day it seemed every object imaginable crossed her path. But she just kept drawing. Some of my favorites are her drawings of food. I think they're perfect for decorating the kitchen's of food lovers. This one is Sushi. Go ahead and click it. Sometimes she would run out of ideas and I'd be watching a football game or taking out the garbage and she'd ask me for an idea, and I'd say something like "How about a bunch of drawings of meat." Blammo...

And I'd come back at halftime and there it was, an illustration of prime rib of beef that literally made my mouth water. Damn these look good framed. Really classy. They're like Objectivist Poetry, just allowing the subject itself to assert it's uniqueness until even something you've seen a thousand becomes extraordinary.

I'd eat that paella. After I saw this drawing we went to a restaurant and I ordered paella and I was ultimately disappointed because it couldn't compete with this drawing. if you'd like to order an illustration for your kitchen, or even if you have an idea for something you'd like drawn contact me and I'll put it to Jenny. Otherwise, you can order anything at Tiny Drawings and we'll frame that up professionally and send it. 







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The Swamp Golem

Swamp Golem

The Swamp Golem is one of the finest Tiny Drawings. Where does the swamp end and the Golem begin? It's hard to say. I know I wouldn't want to encounter this creature out on the Bayou. or anywhere else, for that matter.  Pin It

Jenny Mathews Art Exhibit Entirely For Foodies July 20th in Rockford

Artist Jenny Mathews will be displaying her mighty illustration skills Friday, July 20th at 317 Studio and Gallery in Rockford, Illinois. The exhibit will be comprised entirely of illustrations of food. 

Prime Rib Roast is an example of the type of work you'll see at this show. Twenty-five mouth-watering culinary delicacies that will have you drooling. Wine, sushi, tender cuts of beef etc. If you are looking to decorate your kitchen these works are perfect. And the most amazing part is their size. These are Tiny Drawings, which means each piece is 6x6 or smaller. If you don't see something you'd want to eat, contact Jenny and she can draw it for you, frame it, and send it to you. 

You want Paella, Jenny can make you Paella. Contact us for pricing. 

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The Dover Demon, a New Illustration From a First Hand Account

Were it not for the alliteration of the words, it is doubtful the cryptid known as The Dover Demon would ever have been called The Dover Demon at all. Another case of a short-lived, or hit and run cryptid, like The Enfield Horror, on April 21, 1977, the sightings of something otherworldly forever changed a small suburb of Boston, Mass. Four teens witnessed a creature — labeled the Dover Demon by locals — at different times within a 25-hour period. Their descriptions and accounts seemed to confirm there was a new resident in Dover.

Witnesses described this alienlike creature as having a watermelon-shaped head and a body like a lanky monkey. The demon also had very large eye sockets with glowing eyes, but no other perceptible facial features were reported. The demon appeared to stand no more than 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall with a hairless body and a bright orange skin tone. What exactly could this creature with such strange features be?

The Dover Demon 1977

The Dover Demon, most probably one of the most misnamed cryptids in history. What the witnesses from Dover witnessed that night was clearly an alien creature. But he who names it claims it. I know of no variety of demonic creature that vaguely resembles this rendering of what was seen near Boston on April 21, 1977.

One's first intuition might be to assume the witnesses had just returned from a matinee of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but that movie didn't open until November of 1977, I therefore conclude this must be confirmed as a legitimate sighting of a real space alien.

The Dover Demon was first sighted outside near a bar by three seventeen-year-old boys who were driving through the Massachusetts area when the car's headlights illuminated it. Bill Bartlett, the driver, reported that he saw what he thought at first was a dog or a cat, but upon closer inspection realized that it was a bizarre, unearthly-looking creature crawling along a stone wall on Farm Street.

Bartlett continued to watch the creature, and he reported it to have a disproportionately large, watermelon-shaped head and illuminated orange eyes, like glass marbles. It had long, thin arms and legs with slender fingers, which it used to grasp onto the pavement. It was hairless and had rough, flesh-toned skin, described as tan and sandpaper-like. The creature's appearance was very plain, with no nose or ears, and no mouth was seen. The witness drawings portray its head as having a skull shape, forming the contour of a circle on top with a more elliptical ending projecting down to include where the nose and mouth would be.

Other witnesses have claimed the creature had green eyes and seemingly smooth, chalky gray toned skin, three feet tall, and made a bloodcurdling noise, similar to a hawk's screech combined with a snake's hiss. But all witnesses say it had no ears, mouth, nose, or known sex.

The creature was sighted again an hour later, by John Baxter, 15, and Pete Mitchell, 13, as they were walking home. He said it was bipedal and ended up running into a gully and standing next to a tree. The next day, Abby Brabham, 15, and Will Traintor, 18, driving down Springdale Avenue, claimed to have seen a similar-looking creature from Traintor's car, on the side of the road. 

Here's a rendering of The Dover Demon that might be considered more "demonic," but it's not what the witnesses actually described.

Brabham's description matched Bartlett's and Baxter's descriptions, except this time the cryptid had illuminated green eyes. She approximated its height as "about the size of a goat". Investigators attempted to shake up Ms. Brabham by noting she said it had green eyes reflected by car headlights, while Bartlett mentioned orange eyes were reflected back to him by his automobile's lights. Ms. Brabham was steadfast in her description.

Bartlett, Baxter, Brabham, and Traintor all drew sketches of the monstrous sight shortly after their sightings. On the piece of paper that includes Bartlett's sketch, he wrote "I, Bill Bartlett, swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this creature."

Illustration of a first-hand account of the Dover Demon by artist Jenny Mathews

Exclusive. I sent a Zombie Logic Press reporter over to Dover last week, and he reported back that the 1977 sighting turned out to be a guy named Artie who had been drinking at the same bar, the El Dorado on Sixth, for 33 years before those kids saw him come stumbling out. Sure, he was a little orange, Joe Pozlanski, the owner/operator of the El Dorado stated, but so is Mike Ditka, and that's what 33 years of sitting on the same bar stool drinking Cutty Sark and rooting for the Bruins will do to you. Case closed. (Artist rendition of the actual Dover Demon, Artie Schneider, by Tiny Drawing artist Jenny Mathews).

More cryptids by Fortean scholar Thomas L. Vaultonburg

More Tiny Drawings by Jenny Mathews

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Tiny Drawing Poem (Beaten)

When I was homeless in 2008 I rode the bus a lot. It was a nice place to write. And it was heated. I wrote most of the children's book of poems Atrocities From A to Z on the RMTD bus. This is a poem I wrote about the terminal. The font is Penn Station. 

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The Night Is So Still Dolphins Swim Through It

When I was a child in school I never listened. I knew it wasn't the right thing to do, and eventually they just stopped trying to instruct me and gave me a pile of books to read. Even then i sensed there wasn't much reason getting knowledge second or third hand, filtered through the voice of someone who may or may not even understand it. Given math equations, I ignored whatever rules they attempted to teach me and simply proceeded using my own trial and error methods. Which, given time, were eventually successful. Either I ran out of time or I solved the problems. Always my brain has worked that way. Sort of a solipsistic inductive reasoning machine. No point trying to learn the rules of the game at this late date. Why do I tell you this? I don't know. Because there's more afternoon than I need. Well, because I use design programs like Photoshop the same way. I can't ever learn the hard and fast rules, which would no doubt save me a great deal of time. "Dolphins" is a poem I wrote probably in 1996 on a porch on Quincy Ave. It went into my second book, Detached Retinas. Jenny did this Tiny Drawing last month and told me a few nights ago it went with the poem "Dolphins." Then she decided it didn't go with the poem "Dolphins," but I had already decided it had by this point. So, I put together the Tiny Drawing Poem this afternoon using my usual trial and error design method. The font is Flowerchild. 

More Tiny Drawings

More Tiny Drawing Poems

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Partridge Family Poem

In the summer of 2005 I'd just come off of eight straight years in the service industry. I was tired, I hurt everywhere, and my writing had turned bitter and cynical, like me. Too much time watching people misbehave and fade away. All the poems for what would become my book Flesh Wounds were finished, and I just wanted to try something new. So, I took that summer off, sat on the porch, went to the park, down by the river, and just wrote poems with minimal to no apparent meaning. These were the first poems from my book Submerged Structure. Jenny saw this one last night and decided it went with her Tiny Drawing. I think she's right. 

More Tiny Drawing Poems

Tiny Drawings

As always, we hope you'll link to and share our works. 

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Top Ten Tiny Drawings By Jenny Mathews

                                                                                 10) Celery

     Celery is an every day Joe. He has a job and a girlfriend. He bowls. He goes to family picnics. The only difference between Celery and you or I is Celery is a celery. 

                                         9) Garden Gnome Riding a Squirrel

Gnome Riding Squirrel

    On occasion the creator of Tiny Drawings, Jenny, will run out of ideas for drawings and ask me. And sometimes I'll say the oddest thing I can think of like "There's a garden gnome, named Rastus, and he's riding a squirrel and using a sprig of asparagus as a lance in a joust with an Orc." Now if you said that to 99.999% of the people on the planet they might tell you where to put your asparagus, but since Jenny can draw anything she starts drawing, then a while later I get an email and it's a Gnome named Rastus riding a squirrel and using a sprig of asparagus in a joust against an Orc (in this case Orc not pictured). 

                                                       8) The Batphone

Batphone by Jenny Mathews

     This was another request by me. For some reason I want one of these old rotary phones in black. I have no earthly use for it, but I still want one. But when you have a Tiny Drawing you usually don't even need the thing anymore.

                                                         7) Prime Rib

     Peime Rib is from the cuts of meat series (suggested by me). I'd eat this prime rib. 

                                                  6) Two Planets Merlot

     Two Planets Merlot is from the beverages series. I think I may have also recommended that one. This would go really well with the prime rib.

                                                              5) House

     There have been occasions when I mentioned my ideal house would have porches on top and bottom so I could walk out of a summer afternoon and maybe drink a cold beer while watching the world go about its business. It's like that Twilight Zone episode where the kid imagines something and it appears. 

                                                          4) Train

     Sometimes other people will request a Tiny Drawing. And she draws it. Like this train. 

                                                          3) Mermaid

     This Tiny Drawing was the runner up winner in a national contest for a vodka label. I think the contest was fixed.

                                                            2) Well

     I don't know where this well is, but my guess is that it's somewhere behind the house from earlier.

                                                         1) Wolf Boy

     This is my favorite Tiny Drawing because I know what it is and you don't have to you can just look at it.

You can look at all the Tiny Drawings by Jenny Mathews and you can even buy them and request one at Tiny Drawing

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Shingetsu and the Tao of Prog Rock

Some afternoons there's more afternoon than things to do, so my mind wanders. On occasion I'll fall into a rabbit hole and end up somewhere I never expected. The afternoon I discovered the music of Japanese progressive rock band Shingetsu was such an afternoon. It began quite innocently. One thing I like to do is give another look at something I feel I may have overlooked, or dismissed without a fair trying out. Progressive Rock is one of those things. So, I started what became an afternoon long excursion into the heart of prog rock by listening to "In the Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson. A natural entre into the early 70's world of prog rock, and one I enjoyed quite a bit. But the thing about You Tube is it branches out and you end up in places you might never have expected . This happened to me. By nightfall I had learned every country has it's own Prog Rock band. Shingetsu is Japan's.


Perceptive readers will surely note the figure in the Tiny Drawing is not playing a gong at all, but a drum. very true. Because the Tiny Drawing is inspired by a performance of Houston's Japanese drum ensemble, Kaminari Taiko. Tiny Drawings and Tiny Drawing Poems cannot occur simultaneously any more than two subatomic particles can occupy the same space at the same time. But after I wrote my tribute to Shingetsu I remembered the Tiny Drawing from the performance. 


The font is Atomic Sushi, not because I did an exhaustive search and Atomic Sushi was the most appropriate font, but because once I saw the words Atomic Sushi the search ended. as always please feel free to share Tiny Drawing Poems and if you're interested in purchasing a Tiny Drawing you can do so Tiny Drawings but probably not an original because only I have those.

Shingetsu was a Japanese prog rock band

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Roller Girl (Tiny Drawing Poem)

In 2005 the paperwork to start the Rockford Rage flat track roller derby league was signed in the ladies room of  Castaways, the dive bar my brother and I owned at the time. For the first year while the league was going through the growing pains of learning how to find a venue for the bouts, recruit fresh meats and dot the i's and cross the t's or filing the legal and financial paperwork needed to field a professional sports league, Castaways was the home of the Rockford Rage. It was every bit of drama and chaos you would expect. And almost no one thought it would work. Until 1,500 people showed up to see one of the first bouts.


One of the early challenges of women's flat track roller derby was overcoming the stereotypes that it was the same roller derby people had seen in old footage, or the glamorized, phony version that had been shown on television only a year previously. This was flat track roller derby, and these women were really hitting and blocking and elbowing each other. For the first few weeks they practiced on an asphalt parking lot. These women were tough. And great athletes. They broke legs and fingers and arms and came back to play again


Anyway, this isn't meant to be an exhaustive history of women's flat track roller derby in Rockford, Illinois, just a short backdrop to this Tiny Drawing Poem. My co-creator happens to have been one of those original Roller Girls. This is her drawing and the poem I set to it. The font is AR Delaney. It seemed to convey the boldness apropriate for such a subject.

Women's Flat Track Roller Derby
Whole you're here why not check out our feminist webcomic Single Zombie Female

Jenny is going to have an art show displaying all the roller derby posters she has created for The Rockford Rage as part of our Zombie Logic Press design team.

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