It’s a whippet play bow.
Bow-wow.
Getting there.
Still thundering on
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It’s a whippet play bow.
Bow-wow.
Getting there.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
endpapers instead of Endpapers
I’m working flat out to finish Thunderstorm Dancing before the end of the month, so I haven’t much time to post here. Nor is there much to post, because the illos for the book are under wraps until publication… apart from small snippets.
Yesterday I finished the endpapers for the back of the book. Today I’ll hopefully finish the front endpapers. I suppose it could be okay to post a bit of an endpaper on Endpapers.
Here’s part of the back endpapers.
Cornish Cat called Thunder with seagulls and afternoon tea
And here’s my very hurried 52 Week Illustration Challenge contribution for this week (Under the Sea) which I made with some leftover fish bones drawn for Thunder endpapers. I’m sure leftover fish bones are an under-utilised art material…
This didn’t really work, because I was hurrying so much. Having said that, the imperfect, rough edges on everything are deliberate. I like the rough prickliness of the pasted fish and seaweed drawings, which gives them a fossilised or desiccated look.
Halloween Under the Sea
Both of these works are made using drawings done with Prismacolour Artstick, scanned and coloured in PhotoShop, on top of watercolour and ink background washes.
Oh, and lastly, just this little fragment from one of my illustrations for the book. (The lightning page.) I love the close-up sections of some pages, with none of the action or figures present, making them abstract. This one reminds me of the skin of a whale swimming deep underwater. I feel I should paint a whale eye and put it in one corner. Perhaps later, when all is done.
Thunder lightning sky fragment
Camperdown Sam
This post is to introduce you to Camperdown Sam. During our school holiday visit to Camperdown, on our first walk into the main street we met with various delightful local animal characters.
One local was Fred (Who belongs to Ted), a dog of strongly suggestive Border Terrierishness x Australian Terrierishness, who came from a rescue centre. (And according to Ted’s wife, I am completely wrong about his breeding.) We have yet to acquire some photos of Fred with ears aloft. They were lovely. More on Fred another time.
Here’s Fred. It was hard to locate the crank handle to get him to lift his ears. These went up periodically to display neat, soft Border Terrier style ears but with tufts flying like pennants from the tips. I am determined to get a photo of those ears by any means necessary!
One was Sam. Sam looked at a distance like a small thundercloud. All furious black fluff, glaring yellow eyes, and very round. (Way too round for his own good.) But as Sam found himself being observed in his driveway, he demonstrated his highly social character by rushing over to introduce himself to us up close.
What with all the weaving, winding, and waving of his tail, Sam didn’t stand still long. At least that is the lame excuse I am giving for my poor photography. I was also stroking at the same time as photographing.
Sam in shadow – Check out that tummy, nearly touching the ground.
Feather boa tail
Alright, so you get the idea.
Well, I’m only just getting started on Sam. I think he’s a lot of fun to paint. He’s so inky. But I’ve other work to do first.
For Ann James’s birthday I did this first Sam sketch. Poor Sam has been scandalously misrepresented in temperament. But it was so much more fun to draw him as a grumpy thundercloud cat. Especially wearing a party hat.
Then I did a couple of other quick ink paintings for the 52 Week Illustration Challenge (theme this week black & white… handy). This first cartoon Sam is ink with digital scribble on top. I don’t think it is a success. It could be, if I re-do the face or even just the eyes, but not at the moment. Anyway, his tail got lost off the edge of the page. Never mind.
This one, I like. And here he is smiling, as Sam did in person. Note: I could have depicted them better, but I have tried to include the cute tufts of fluff that poke up between long-haired cats’ toes. I’ve made them too spiky, not clumpy enough here, so they look more like claws.
And now back to the last illos for Thunderstorm Dancing.
Continuous line drawing with halftone
The theme for the 52 Week Illustration Challenge this week is ‘Black and White’. Not too much of a problem for me. Unlike last week’s theme, abstract. (aiiiiyh!!)
The boys and I went to the local hotel for a meal and took our sketch-books along. Mine was a dictionary of english phrases. I sketched the available people…. there weren’t many there! Then I scanned them, took out all the colour, and added some grey tone to give a bit of definition where my continuous line drawings were a bit ambiguous. But then I thought… black and white… not grey. So I converted all my grey to half-tone and I liked the effect. So that’s good! Trying something new with the altered books!
Chatting girl at the pub
This girl was as happy as anything and barely stopped chatting.
hoodie girl at the pub
This girl listened. And chatted a bit too.
Curly Sunglasses guy at the pub
Curly guy was a bit pensive.
Do you like my continuouslinedrawingsignaturesjustforfun?
Coming Full Circle
We are tidying up the house before school starts tomorrow. An ambitious task, given a week or three, let alone one afternoon…
The boys went through a HUGE pile of their artwork in the kitchen and decided what to keep and what to recycle (I didn’t dare look). Aside from lots of kids’ artwork, they found some interesting other items including, a bag with a badge and pen from a toy train festival, two of my missing tax activity statements… for years already lodged (ahem), a pile of receipts for the same, and a few bits of my own mislaid drawings.
Mitsu-Bishi Hi-uni Poni with black wings
These were among them. They refer back to the first tests of the new pencil range that Scott bought in his Pencil Period, which I blogged about when I had just started Endpapers.
Here is another odd pair of sketches. I”m including them just because I have to finish cleaning the kitchen now :-)
Miscellaneous! This was the beginning of my whippet phase, because of Thunderstorm Dancing. And Dexter the ball-obsessed Staffordshire Bull Terrier is of course the perfect foil to a whippet.
The Paunch on the Perch
Mr Owl (as yet un-named) progresses on this sunny spring afternoon, our last day in Camperdown.
Our lack of method is throwing up a few issues that will need to be addressed and at the moment the head looks too tall. But when he’s a little less soggy, we will be able to remedy that.
Mr Owl hanging from the clothes line, with some serious surgery about to begin. Some wire (which I could not get to go through his paper middle – not surprisingly) is tied around him to form the basis of his wings.
My apprentice poses with Mr Owl, newly attached to his perch. Arty did one leg, I did the other.
The mad professor at work. Thanks to Arthur for many of these photos. As you can see I had sticky fingers!
The wings and tail in progress, photo c/o Arty. You see I ran out of wire for the second wing. Not to be too daunted, we carry on. Mr Owl will never be the best flier, which reminds me of the wonderful Sett Owl from Isobelle Carmody’s Little Fur series.
Gluey! Shortly after this, the dog threw up on the lawn next to me. You wanted to know that, didn’t you?
Arty is working on making several beaks for us to choose from, when the moment arrives for Mr Owl’s face!
I hope you are enjoying all these photos of the washing (sorry Nanna Gail). Where would we Australian’s be without the marvellous ‘Hills Hoist’ clothes line?
And now we leave him to drip dry for a while. Tomorrow he needs to be fit to travel to Melbourne in the car.
And now it’s back to work on Thunderstorm Dancing cover options in Nanna Gail’s sunny studio.
Barking mad owl
Arthur (11 years old) is Harry Potter mad and has all sorts of home made potions, whittled wands and sundry other stuff on the shelves above his bed. He has been longing for a life-sized owl to hang on a perch from the ceiling. The school holidays were the promised time for making, and now we have only three days left. So after dinner tonight, the first paper was torn.
We are hoping that Pa won’t get a fright when he comes home from the cinema. This beginning owl swinging from the chimney may look a bit spooky in the dark!
We’re also hoping he doesn’t try to cook it.
Wish us luck. We hope it might look a bit like this…. Or of course, better!
Week 39 WORDS
This week’s theme in the 52 Week Illustration Challenge first spawned a parliament of owls.
my first owl drawing and the one I don’t like. Yick!
I like this one, even though he is rather serious. His O needs kerning.
I like this rough, painterly owl. The lettering is awful. Just a bit TOO careless.
This doodle didn’t even get any words added
It was getting late, but then I just had to do this dog and he was very quick.
Yappy the Dog
Finally, I went to bed. But I wasn’t finished with doodling, so I took my pen and a bit of paper. Total inanity prevailed.
First Yappy the Dog got water tortured by Amy the Toddler
Then following on the theme of Gnawty dogs… (oh dear)
And noisy dogs
And noisy parrots… and naughty cats…
And a few more owls to finish up. Whew!
Sewjourn (part 2) – Bird Mania
I doodled, sketched, painted and chopped many birds at Sewjourn. Here are a few.
The jacket was time consuming and almost took one full day in the studio (bearing in mind that the culinary arts are also a big part of our Sewjourn weekend, so there is a fairly lengthy lunch-break in the middle of the day).
Choosing projects is a big decision when the time is limited to 2 precious days. A big project can be satisfying but takes a big slab of the time. Doing many small projects is also very satisfying. The important thing for me is to make some decision, because staring in confusion at a list of projects is not at all satisfying!
The Doodle Birds were a quick little play and very small, but I also had a lovely time preparing for them, by embellishing book pages with a range of inks and paints to make the patterns for their plumage.
Apologies for the poor photographs. I was so focused on creating that I didn’t take the time to set up proper photos, and much was not photographed at all. In fact I didn’t even make it to the wonderful book shop on the Lancefield main street, and I usually love to support them and buy a few treats for myself or others while I am there.
Bird collage doodle
Bird collage doodles canoodle
A white jacket I have been meaning to paint or deface in some way for over two years. Now well on its way with a back panel full of painted birds
My favourite jacket bird. I like the simplicity of outline, form and colour.
Another little collage bird. Actually the creases are not obvious in the real thing. It doesn’t like to be squished in the scanner though.
Judy Watson 