29 Faces Challenge

Well hello! I've been off the grid for a while but decided now would be a good time to try getting back into a bit of artiness, and to that end I'm going to have a go at doing the 29 Faces challenge this month. I don't do nearly enough drawing and faces are fun! So here is day 1: she's a little coloured pencil illustration on printer paper. Check out the link above to find more information about the month long challenge and sign up if you'd like to.

Whirlygig

Just found this painting I did a while back amongst a pile of background papers. I love drawing flowers and leaves, should do it more often really. This was done over layers of brayered acrylics which make an interesting base to work on top of and I used gold ink sprayed over some of the flowers so it gleams. Think I might make prints available of this soon.

Inking It Up

 

A couple of new ink drawings to show you. I like to work directly onto paper with the pen these days. When I first started using ink I would always draw varying degrees of detail in first with pencil as I didn't quite have the confidence to just go for it. After a while though I found that I relished the spontaneity of diving straight in much more and enjoyed the challenge of 'mistakes' and how to incorporate them into the whole piece.

The top piece, Spring Tune, also has a wash of pale rose watercolour over it. You can find both of them, and more views, here.

The Snow Queen - Work In Progress

I haven't drawn any faces for quite a while but at this time of year I always start thinking about my favourite winter tale, the Snow Queen, and get the urge to do some illustration for it. I've drawn and painted her a few times over the years and she looks different each time. Here I was thinking of her beguiling aspect and tried to give her large, hypnotic eyes and a very serene face. 

At the minute she doesn't look very regal but I intend to add colour and some other elements to the page, although I think she's already visited my studio and turned it into the Ice Palace so that could be an interesting experience!

You Complete Me

Gosh it's an effort at the moment. All I want to be doing is hibernating. I want to fill my tummy full of pine needles like the Moomins and sleep until Spring. The world seems to be going in slow motion and I feel like I'm swimming through treacle, waiting for the daffodils, waiting for warmth, waiting for colour, waiting for my muse to come home. Soon, soon.

South of the Border, Down Penwortham Way

I've always had a fascination with architecture and landscape and buildings made from mud are right up there amongst my favourite things. This little art card of an adobe house is a study I did whilst thinking about a much larger piece and speculating on how much more interesting our vernacular architecture could be if we hadn't given in to the twin gods of planning and executive homes.

Personally I'd love to live in an organic, hand-built house which owed nothing to the kind of fake modernist-retro 'new builds' which I see everywhere now, but would I get planning permission for a wattle and daub, straw bale house - even assuming I could afford to buy the land to build it on? I think not. Perhaps I should move to Mexico.

Oh, and it used to be all fields round here, y'know...

Storm Warning

I want to live by the sea. I miss its constant voice and the smell of the ozone. Every so often I cycle back round to this realisation and then I have to create something by way of compensation, or re-read Tove Jansson's wonderful story The Fillyjonk Who Believed In Disasters, or both.

North Star and Hababa Sunset

I love my watercolours. There's such a wonderful depth of colour combined with lightness of application about them. I love the way they move around the paper when I'm working wet-in-wet and the suprising effects that sometimes produces.

The first of these pieces, North Star also uses acrylics which I've laid on in glazes of transparent colour. My friend Amy describes it as a kind of interior landscape and I couldn't have put it better myself. The other piece, Hababa Sunset was inspired by various photos of the beautiful medieval city of Hababa in Yemen.

You can see both of them currently in my Etsy store - just click on the title of this post to go there.

Deer Girl - Completed

Here she is then. I would have posted her sooner but my internet went kablooey and I only got it back last night. Grrr.

Anyway I couldn't decide what medium to use for colour so I eventually went for pencils. My dearly beloved bought me a wonderful new sharpener the other day, a Jakar, which catches the shavings and has a special slot for coloured pencils. (Alright, I know you're thinking that I need to get out more, but if you've ever endured the frustration of trying to use Karismacolours with a blunt sharpener you'll understand my delight.)

SOLD

Lyra and Iorek - Completed

Many hours later, the finished piece! The strange pod/flower things were inspired by some very tiny mushrooms I saw growing near where I live. They were buff and cream and seemed to be inside out, with the gills on the top of the cap. Can't find out what they're called so if anyone knows, shout out please!

Lyra and Iorek

Many years ago I used to work almost exclusively in graphite, then I stopped drawing entirely and haven't worked in it since I rediscovered my love of art. But today I unearthed a box of Derwent pencils and charcoal that I bought a couple of years ago and promptly mislaid - believe me, if you'd seen how untidy my studio is you wouldn't find that at all hard to accept - and decided they would do nicely for this piece I sketched out last night.

With the film version of The Northern Lights out soon I've been thinking about how much I enjoyed the books. Well not the third one so much; I found that a little disappointing, but the first two are excellent and far too sophisticated to be read only by children!

So this is Lyra Belacqua and Iorek Byrnison. Actually I've taken a bit of a liberty with Iorek. He's from the far north so should probably be a polar bear and much bigger, but for the purposes of this drawing he's become darker furred and more Kodiak-like. This is, as you no doubt have guessed, just the work-in-progress. I'll post the finished version when it's, er, finished.

More Carrots

Another ink and digital piece today. I sometimes wonder if I have a subconcious hankering to be a children's book illustrator as every so often I find myself doing these sort of whimsical drawings.

Actually I was thinking the other day about all the books I read during my formative years - I used to be a daily visitor at our local lending library - and reliving that sense of wonder and excitement that comes from a good book. I feel sad for those kids - and they are an increasing number - who grow up now on a diet of tv and Gameboys without really experiencing the joys of reading.

I believe that reading a book teaches many things, not all of them obvious. You learn to be still and quiet and attentive. You learn the pleasure of solitude and of sharing your enjoyment through reading aloud to another. You learn to imagine, to paint your own pictures in your head and sometimes to make up your own stories.

Reading is not a passive thing, quite the opposite in fact, and I'm so thankful I was encouraged to develop a love for it right from the start.

This bunny for sale here

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.

Weapon of Choice

Another drawing of my fantasy town which I might paint later on. Rima and Neda were asking me about ink drawing a while ago so I thought I'd just mention my choice.

I have a good old-fashioned mapping pen which I use when I want a particular effect - it can make wonderful variable lines with a slightly grungy appearance and of course you can splat the ink around if you're feeling adventurous.

For most line work however I prefer a Pilot drawing pen. These come in several different point sizes and are quite robust. I also like Pigma Micron pens, just can't get them round here alas. Both these brands are inexpensive and most importantly (for me) don't 'scratch' when you use them. Nothing puts me off a pen quicker than scratchiness!

The other thing in the picture is my propelling pencil which I love because it never needs sharpening and gives a nice fine line.

Walk in the Park WIP

One of the things I love to do is what you might call illustration work. I like being able to invent places and stories and have fun putting them into a painting.

This is a work-in-progress scan of my latest piece, inked and ready for paint, which I think will be watercolour in this case. I have whole towns and villages in my head and this is a small portion of one of them. It looks sort of French or at any rate European to me but it doesn't have a name yet.

The Road Home

Another art card featuring mountains and the moon, something I keep returning to it seems, hence the title.

For sale on Ebay here

Marbles

A bit of still life. I am trying out painting glass and finding it quite fascinating to do. This is a little 3"x3" piece.

For sale on Ebay here

Sleeping Dog

Always let them lie!

I recently took the plunge into a bit of realism type painting, completely new territory for me and a real challenge! This is one I had my lovely boy Samuel pose for. He's sleeping on my bed in the sun.

Mist On The Mountain

Well no sooner did I get back to my blog than my computer decided to go into meltdown *sigh*! I've spent the last four days trying to retrieve 12 months of artwork and get everything running again, but I think it's finally coming together. It isn't 'til they go wonky that you realise just how much you rely on them.

Anyway here's a collograph I made shortly before it all went kablooey. If you're interested in the process there's more pictures and a brief explanation in the listing - please take a look!

Sunday In The Park

So busy at the moment with stuff art and non-art related, there are too few hours in the day! So this is just a quick fly-by and I hope things get back to normal soon. A relaxing stroll in the park would be good right about now.

For sale on Ebay here