Troll caught by the rising sun.
I could also have done a vampire being extinguished by the rising sun too… But this will do for my Quota of Gruesomeness for one week.
This is done with a Staedtler Lumocolour pencil on litho paper, because I couldn’t find any black Prismacolours long enough to use. It was oily and black and nice.
The Scribble Cornish of yesterday, became a fully drawn and painted Cartoon Cornish after dinner last night. I started out to do an inky depiction, with wet edges, to suggest the fuzz, as per all of my work this year really. Fast and loose… But strangely I found myself taking the unprecedented step of using a sharpened Prismacolour pencil to draw in some detail, as the Prismacolour Artstick was frustrating me by going off rather too wildly on its own tangents.
And although, this picture is not exactly as I would want it, I have to say, I quite enjoyed being careful… relatively careful… for a few moments :-)
Anyway, Mr Cornish salutes you.
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.
I’m drawing whippets over and over again until I get the expression just right for final art.
Sometimes, when I’ve drawn the dog several times over in the ‘pose’ (for want of a better word) required for the illustration, I still can’t get it right. Low growl.
Then I sometimes draw the dog (or cat, or person) in another way entirely and it gets my brain out of the gridlock.
Here’s Lucy telling me to play ball and chill out sister.
Ball anyone?
Our old boy, who sleeps with his tongue hanging out now. (But not with his eyes open…)
Pencil sketch with digital wash.
I’m revising roughs on the run. This puddy was a Maine Coon in the rough and needed converting to Rex before inking.
It would be nice to have an auto-conversion button, but actually it’s quite a nice part of my work. The Maine Coon was a bit cranky. The Rex is more comical and sweet. So the pose/attitude needs to change accordingly.
Now for the ink.
A little pick-me-up / warm-up session this morning for Tania McCartney’s 52 Week Illustration Challenge.
(funny how sometimes my post headings don’t show up… It could be just at my end. Who knows? Now that I have typed the heading into the body of the post, no doubt it will come up as a double heading. Oh well :-)We love to hand-make all of our birthday cards for family and friends. Sometimes the card is a hurried affair, slapped together moments before deadline; sometimes it’s a painstaking endeavour. But all the family enjoy this tradition.
Sometimes a fairly quick creation turns out well. And of course all art practice feeds into and informs the other art that you do.
Here’s a card done this morning for a friend turning 50. Her alter ego (so some of us decided in our wisdom ;-) is Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Later I’ll post a selection of cards made by all of us.
and inside…
Swimming again, or rather, watching the swimming. Here were some of my more immediate neighbours on the spectator benches at swimming lessons this week.
My fine-point pens had died of exhaustion, so I enjoyed using a thicker felt tip instead, and later adding a bit of pencil colour at the drawing board was fun.
auburn haired swimmer – this little boy has a spectacular head of flaming orange-red.
blue sibling – she found Ollie the Octopus’s antics amusing
green sibling – same sibling, different colour
Mum with mobile phone – most of the spectators spend a lot of time watching their phones. It’s a funny world we live in now. I do it too sometimes.
Two of our chickens spent the day at school yesterday. Poppy because she is so pretty, and Hilda the Hun because she is the undisputed Queen of Chickens and very relaxed.
They modelled for some creative writing in the Grade 2 classroom. Then they moved to the art room where they posed for life drawings with two Grade 2 classes and two Prep classes. Everybody, chickens and children alike, behaved beautifully. The art teacher was wonderful.
I had the pleasure of peeking in (at the Pekins;-) near the end of the day while the preps were still hard at work drawing. They were so proud of their beautiful work. I only had time to take a few quick photos with my phone (mostly pretty dark and blurry!) and to tell them how well they were drawing. Here are just a few that I saw, including a handful by Dimitra who deserves her own separate art gallery.
A smiling shaggy chicken. Looks like Hilda’s expression with Poppy’s decorated plumage.
Hilda with a very elegant tail
Definitely Poppy – both the expression and the feathering
Chloe has put a lot of work into that decorative plumage
Antonio has drawn both chickens. Poppy is sensibly keeping out of the way on the perch.
A whole flock of Poppies in progress
Poppy and Hilda side by side on the perch. Feathers fluffed as they preen themselves. This little boy has cleverly drawn Hilda’s head reaching back over her shoulder to preen.
I’m curious about this one. Is this chicken using one wing to bring food to her mouth, or is there a hint of the second chicken behind. I am tending to think the former.
Wish I could get my hands on those eggs. Our girls started moulting and stopped laying a good while ago.
The class industriously drawing our two fluffy girls
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