A Little Extra Something

Sometimes I like to just stop in the middle of splashing ink and paint around and see if I can get some extra mileage out of what I'm doing. The page directly above started life as the right hand side of the spread in the top picture and when it got to this stage I put it into the computer so that I could play some more with it.

I like it as a potential background for other pieces just as it is, so now I have it in my picture files I can print it out whenever I want. I will probably also use Photoshop on it and it'll end up with a whole range of different looks by the time I'm done.

This is what I did with the eggs here. On the left is my original photograph of a stamped book page and opposite is how it looks after being manipulated a little. You don't always have to create brand new images and backgrounds - it can be fun to do a little recycling and reusing of what you already have! 

Red House Revisited

I am all about colour at the moment. Maybe it's the end of the winter and spring in the air, I don't know, but I feel the need for strong saturated colours and lots of 'em.

So I recently went back to a piece I did some time ago and started adding a few digital touches and filters to it. Red House was an oil pastel painting with strong colours and lots of texture. I wanted to see if I could push the saturation to make it even more in your face without losing the detail, and I think it worked out pretty well.

Moonbathing Again

Today I have been making some new Photoshop brushes from some old botanical illustrations. This is something I find quite satisfying and a lot of fun to do. For the longest time I was a complete Photoshop dunce but slowly slowly I am learning how little bits and pieces work and my gosh it's useful!

This piece here is a reworking of a little Irodori watercolour painting I did last year. I've always liked it but I wondered if I could make it seem even more magical and mysterious. So I added some more layers to it and I think it's come out pretty well.

Spirit Child

Yesterday I was looking through my image files and I came across this little girl. I've always loved her slightly otherworldly look and have played around in past work to make her look even more ghostly. This time I decided to construct a digital piece with a bit of a gothic look, so while the wind was whistling round the house and the rain was bucketing down this is what I came up with.

Bluebird

While I was not sleeping last night I drew this little birdy in ink. Then this morning I scanned him into the computer and painted him in Photoshop. I've only very recently discovered how to paint digitally but I love the flat, even field of colour possible with this technique.