Category Archives: 52 Week Illustration Challenge

These are some line drawings done in the car during a rainy soccer training session in half darkness. I am quite pleased with them because they were done from the imagination and without any visual reference. I let the words of the french lesson lead the direction of the doodle. I tried to do them almost completely using a continuous line, except where my pen fell off the page. And above, I did some rather crude scribble in the speech balloon as well.

And below is one of my Calculus Fashion ladies with a bit of colour added. I am quite liking the effect on the parchment and print.

Sometimes I draw quite complex continuous line drawings in my mind, while lying in bed at night. It’s very relaxing, and the resulting drawings take up very little storage space.

Occasionally I forget where I put them, because I fall asleep :-)

Calculus Doodles in Bed

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These were all done using a historical fashion book for reference and a differential calculus book as a canvas.

I first looked for interesting mathematical lines and diagrams, then found fashions that seemed to meld with them. The rest was a bit of swift improvisation. The women in the fashion book are (deliberately) bland and faceless. I added some life to the people, and altered poses, and fashion to suit the squiggles of my pen.

I do seem to find this kind of squiggling very relaxing. And it can be quite suggestive of all sorts of things… Astrakhan, embroidery, hedges…

The writing/drawing process July 2014

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At the start of the school holidays, I was invited by artist Rosalie Street to participate in a blog tour… which means answering some questions (below) and getting some other people to do the same next.

Here is Rosalie’s interview response. A visit to her blog to enjoy her lush canvases and delightful merchandise is well worth your while.

Gold Leaf – by Rosalie Street

The blog tour topic is The Writing/ Drawing Process. Since as yet, I have found little time to work on my writing projects and instead have been madly drawing, I’ll answer the questions in the context of my artwork.

The first bit (the questions)

1. What am I working on ?

Thunderstorm Dancing, a picture book by Katrina Germein

At the moment I am in the late stages of final art for a picture book by Katrina Germein to be published by Allen & Unwin. The book is called Thunderstorm Dancing and it has been over two years since I first starting mulling over the project.

As soon as I read the manuscript, I thought it would be both a great text and a very difficult text to illustrate. It has indeed proven difficult for me, but I also realise that I suffered from the internal pressure that comes from winning an award; this will be the first of my work to be published since that award and my inner self told me very sternly that it will have to be good. But I now move towards the completion of the book and I’m looking forward to seeing it in print.

An unused sketch for ‘Thunderstorm Dancing’

There have been many sketches made for this book. A decision on medium was elusive for a while. But it came along in the end, and I’ve really enjoyed the layering and scratching in PhotoShop combined with the earthy texture of the real paint and pencil on Litho paper.

A small fragment of one final illustration from Thunderstorm Dancing

Altered book art

Last year, while struggling to progress with the picture book, I almost accidentally began sketching in old books as a form of relaxation. I say almost accidentally, because I have admired altered book art and found poetry for quite some time, and had always intended to try it. But starting was not a deliberate step into something new. It was a gentle bit of play, while watching my children in their swimming lessons.

drybrush sketches in the bombing zone of the local swimming pool. Ink on vintage book page.

I began sketching them and other children. And I really loved the effect of the drawn image on the printed page. It also helped me with Thunderstorm Dancing, because I had decided early on that the family in the story would be at a beach house, and the main characters all in swimming cosies.

Altered book art continues to be one of my favourite activities, and I intend to do much more of it, and to explore new ways of using it in art projects.

52 Week Illustration Challenge

The 52 Week Illustration Challenge, dreamed up by Tania McCartney, was something I joined early this year. It requires participants to produce artwork to a given theme that changes each Wednesday, and then post them on the 52 Week Illustration Challenge FaceBook page.

52 Week Illustration Challenge: Week 14: simplicity.
This was a really enjoyable experiment with ink and watercolour

One of the things I loved about it was that the community of people involved were from varied backgrounds and were supportive and kind to one another. Since early this year the group has grown to over 2000 members, many being expert practising artists and the standard of work has I think, sadly frightened many of the less skilled artists away, but the mood of generosity remains. And it is surprisingly good to have a theme to work to each week… often themes that I find very unappealing until they lead me off into some fun experimentation.

I have deliberately kept this challenge as a low-profile task for myself. I never spend long on anything I do for The Challenge and never worry too much if the work is imperfect or not my best. This, along with blogging imperfect work, has been a really healthy learning experience, and a great way to keep producing lots of other work and exploring as an artist, as well as doing my book project.

Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ Puppet Challenge

This is an on-line exhibition organised and curated by Clive Hick-Jenkins along with Peter Slight. I’ve not done so well with this one. In contrast to the other challenge, I have allowed this to become larger than life and daunting. I also failed to come to a decision over subject and medium, although my lightbulb moment came today in the shower (they often do happen there) when I may be too late to make it. So I’m not sure if that counts as something I’m working on or not…

Appropriately perplexed looking sketch of Greyfur the kangaroo who was my original subject matter for the puppet challenge

Graphic design work

Periodically I take up graphic design work if it is not too time consuming. I enjoy this work very much, but too often lately I have had to decline offers of work due to the unfinished book and lack of time. Some of my favourite work is with the Australian Children’s Laureate support team who produce various publications and branding items every now and then. In this context I enjoy using other artists’ work and modifying it to use as part of a design. Ann James drew the magpie who became the Australian Children’s Laureate logo and I have used him in lots of ways.

The Australian Children’s Laureate logo in one of its formats

School children from around Australia made artwork that I used in silhouette for the pitch for Boori Monty Pryor’s Storykeepers documentary.

storykeeprs sample page2 storykeeprs sample page3

Family life

This project of course doesn’t belong down the bottom here. It’s a very big part of my life – too big to summarise here. So I’ll simply say that I keep myself busy with two much loved youngsters Arthur and Hugo, husband Scott, the dog Dexter and chickens Hilda, Emily, Poppy, Storm, Stella and Vita.

Vita – Queen of the Backyard

My own writing projects

This gets a wee mention at the bottom. In fact there are several projects I’m very keen to get on to, that are waiting in line for me to find a bit of space and time. I look forward to launching into them.

2. How does my work differ from others of this genre/ style?

Watch this space

3. Why do I draw/ paint what I do ?

Watch this space too

4. How does my drawing process work ?

Hmmmm…

I have taken waaaay too long answering the first question, so I’m going to split this up and post my answer to the other questions later. Cheerio for now!

More feathers

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It’s been a feathery kind of day today. Starting sadly.

A small starling with a completely broken beak was in our back yard this morning, desperately trying to share the chickens’ breakfast but unable to pick up any food and clearly starving to death. I amazed myself by catching it, but it was obviously desperate to eat and too weak to fly far. Before I could take it to be euthanised, it escaped with extraordinary skill from a closed box on our front porch where it was wrapped in a towel, and it hasn’t been seen since. I feel very sad for it whenever I think of it.

Late this afternoon, I felt like doing a last minute non-blob feather picture for the Challenge and did the Blue-footed Booby (at bottom) which was only a partial success, but the partial success was enough to whet my appetite for another go and I followed up with the emu below who’s a little better perhaps. The glued on shreds of paper were an enjoyable new aspect for me that I’ll play with more in the future.

emu – indian ink, watercolour, white gouache and collage on book page

Blue-footed Booby – indian ink, watercolour, white gouache and collage on vintage book page

Last-day-of-the-holidays Doodles (experiments with blobs part 9)

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Here are some final blob doodles to mark the end of the school holidays and back to work tomorrow (not to mention the piles of washing). I painted some more spiky blobs this time thinking that they might do well for some more birds, just for fun. The curvy spikes have served well in most cases as wings and beaks.

The colours did not work very beautifully on this one. But here is a little Carnivore Bird Thing finding his legs… or his dinner.

This is another Little Carnivore. I like his colours much better.

Little Duck Thing with Big Feet. (This blob is really very small.)

With all those babies, it’s only fitting to have a Mumsy kind of bird. This is a Mummy Trouserbird. She is waiting for her babies to catch up, but they are not very quick on their feet.

This is a Daddy Pyjamabird. He’s getting up for a midnight snack. (note: At night a Trouserbird is called Pyjamabird.)

This is a Trouserbird wearing a parachute.

preposterous thing judywatsonart lores

This is a Preposterous Thing. what can I say? He is lucky to be anything, considering that not long ago, he was merely a blob.

This is a walrussy thing. He may be depressed due to the fact that his tusk is coming out of the wrong place and causes him discomfort.

Holiday doodles

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Here are some little watercolour blobs done while on holiday in Portland. Our holiday was short but very sweet…unlike Blob Bird No 3 who is short and short-tempered. These blobs are all just a few centimetres across. I forgot to take a fine brush with me, so I couldn’t get any fine feathering to work. I did birds first, as the 52 Week Illustration theme of the week is ‘feather’ and then I played around with dogs, monsters etc.

After we got home, late yesterday I did some more drawing in bed. I remembered that the shaggy hair on the lower legs of some breeds of horse (like the Clydesdale) are called ‘feather’ so I drew some Clydesdales, and then found myself drawing a Rebellious Teen Pony With Attitude, who also has feathered legs. I rather liked her.

Blob Bird 1

Blob Bird 2 – what a cheery fellow

Blob Bird 3 – a foul mood. He was drawn at the bottom of the page, and no room for a decent pair of pins.

Blob Bird 4 – Also in a foul mood despite his fancy trousers.

Blob Bird 5 – a bit mad I suspect.

We met a pair of swans in a park with a pond and little hire boats with outboard motors that the kids were able to steer. The swans were crazily gorgeous in a bizarre way, and very grumpy. I was watching them for a while and then drew them from memory later. We also saw Mortimer the Raven at the park, with his friend Edgar. I fed Mortimer from my hand and I saw up close that he really does have a hairy beak! Joan Aiken did not lie.

This is one of the cross swans, drawn from a blob. (Also cramped at the bottom of the page with his toes falling off the edge. I’ve added a bit of digital depth of tone to this one. He was pale grey)

One of the swans, from a blob. But he looks quite cheerful here, but I think he may have some goose blood in him.

A page of dog blobs. These worked better than the birds I thought as I had warmed up. (Maybe it was the champagne, or maybe it was the log fire…. hmmm)

Here are the Cross Swans again. These were drawn in bed last night after we came home. I’ve scanned them and coloured them digitally.

This is one of the bed sketches of a Clydesdale. Below is the Teen Pony.

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A few days ago I got around to joining Pinterest and have started to organise some of my work into boards. It is really quite a useful thing to be able to view a set of work at a glance. I’ve put some Thunderstorm Dancing fragments and working sketches on there too. Nice to bring it together and see what changes have occurred over 2 years!

Here I am if you want to visit me.

My altered Book art is there too. But there’s a lot in my cupboard! Only some of it is on Pinterest. I’ll update it over time.

Week 27: Snow (experiments with blobs part 6)

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These first two are grey blobs with red crayons scribbles in the middle of them. I have found they are harder to turn into things. The red crayon scribble is quite distracting! Who would have thought?

Blue Booby Baby Blob Bird Playing in the Snow.

Ink, red crayon, felt tip, watercolour, white acrylic, digital layering.

Old Dog in the Snow.

Also ink, red crayon, felt tip, watercolour, white acrylic, digital layering.

Search and Rescue Dog in the Snow.

This one has no digital layering. Thought I’d see what the white acrylic paint could do with the snow all by itself. I also skipped the red crayon scribble. Instead, this time I did a grey ink background wash with a red watercolour blob in the middle The red watercolour blob was what suggested the shape of the dog character and the rest followed from there.

I didn’t think I’d come up with anything for the ‘snow’ theme actually. It isn’t something I have much experience with. But blobs are a good way to start when you don’t know where to start. Then, just add some warm winter woollies and snow.

Cloudy Days in Melbourne

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Winter has finally arrived in Melbourne. And the 52 Week Illustration Challenge theme is clouds.

I didn’t have to do anything extra for the Challenge this week really. I am working with clouds all the time for Thunderstorm Dancing, and although I can’t post an entire image until the book is published, I did post a fragment of the spread I was working on, which features approaching storm clouds (below). Froth, spatter, roar and hum.

This spread was finished until my Beloved told me that the veranda perspective needed alteration… the same veranda that the Cat Called Thunder is trotting across. So I will finish it (again) today.

I’m not saying I relate to that cranky terrier up the top. Not at all. Nope. And I do appreciate the help with perspective.

I did find myself wandering off to do cloud blob doodles to cheer myself up though.

big and little cloud monsters lores

Monster cloud blobs…

Wolf cloud blobs, crossing raging rapids…

Bird cloud blobs… one of whom just might possibly be a vulture cloud blob… (Should that be who or whom?)

And lastly this rather bizarre Cloud Blob Doodle which in fact I had done a week or two ago as a variation on the blob improvisation idea. Wherever that photo was taken, it wasn’t Melbourne this week.

Tentacles

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Wednesday night. My night of indulgence. Kids in drama lesson. Me drawing for an hour. I remembered to take some water containers this week.

No I didn’t. I got them out. Then left them behind. But I did get a plastic cup from the cafeteria which I could have done last week if I hadn’t had a secret desire to eat ink.

The 52 Week Illustration Challenge theme… OCTOPUS. I was feeling reasonably comfortable with this, since I’d done an octopus/ squid that I liked back in SIMPLICITY week. (below)

Nice and simple. Oh well. I couldn’t put him in because he wasn’t done freshly for the Challenge theme. So I drew a few more.

First this.

I liked working with all the reds and wishy washing them over each other. That was nice. But I shouldn’t have tried to do the eye ‘realistically’. It’s most unattractive. (Unless you’re an octopus. Then, I’m sure it’s wildly sexy.) I bumped up the colour on this one before posting on Facebook. So he looks like this now.

I preferred my second go. It was very quickly drawn in the old Calculus book, with a bit of wash added after the Prismacolour artstick.

He’s got a little more life to him. And I like his eye which looks quite focused and intelligent.

The next one (groan) was painted after I got home and I thought I’d do a semi-blob treatment starting with grey ink. But he was awfully drab and then I added soft pastels to liven him up. It partly worked. But I was too lazy to hunt out the full collection of pastels and the colour around the eye is yucky! (Very typical of me to stay put on the high chair and use only the colours that are within reach at the drawing table. A shocking vice which may have had something to do with my ink eating last week…) Also the eye is awful again.

Finally I did another using the semi-blob treatment using coloured instead of grey ink. And I changed the eye treatment. I came up with a cute little red octopus on his first date. He is sitting on all his tentacles so as not to accidentally embarrass himself. I like him, but I really don’t like the girlfriend I whizzed up for him. Maybe it was a kind of jealousy. I wanted him for myself…

But I should be kind. Good luck little red octopus. I hope she’s the one for you.

Judy Watson

author illustrator artist

Category Archives: 52 Week Illustration Challenge

Continuous line drawings in French

Calculus Doodles in Bed

The writing/drawing process July 2014

At the start of the school holidays, I was invited by artist Rosalie Street to participate in a blog tour… which means answering some questions (below) and getting some other people to do the same next.