IF - Layer

First posting on Illustration Friday!

Passing the Time....

A quickie! I saw some Ladybirds in a magazine yesterday, inspiration for this one. That's all I'll say!!!!

Windy Day

Id got my next sketch all mapped out! I'd done the rough, layed it all out, made sure I was happy with it all...... and as I stared at my fresh blank page the wind was lashing everything and anything around in the garden! All of a sudden this image popped into my head! So here it is, some 5 days later, and thankfully the gales outside all seemed to have finished too.

How do you like your Hair

I really liked doing this, not only for the fun element, but I went back to some basics and used pastels more. On the last post I talked of trying a moodier side! But after playing around this week I'm beginning to believe it was more about the vibrancy the markers are producing rather than the images themselves. This started as a rough doodle in the ever faithful moleskine, and then transferred onto pastel paper. The first cut was scrapped as I found the markers were bleeding on the paper, so a cup of tea and a re-think later and the final sketch came to life. I've found I can still incorporate the markers if layered over pastel's. It really is the joy of art, being able to experiment with different mediums.
SO, we come onto another subject! Digitally edited or drawn images.... Ive been scouring the net, as per normal, its a great source of inspiration. There's so many wonderful artists out there producing digital pictures. Now I'm no tech wizard, but Ive obviously toyed with the idea for several reasons. Since starting the blog I've tried scanning, taking pictures to even sending off to a printer to scan and put onto disc. All of which never seemed to give the clarity I was after. Then my eldest, otherwise known as 'tall boy', introduced me to the basics of PS (photoshop). Its a fantastic tool for transferring raw images from camera to blog. But there's a whole other world inside PS beyond plain & simple photo editing. My dilemma on this image was the writing!!!! I hate my writing at the best of times, and I have very little need to write things manually on a day to day basis. Even my work is several screens and programmes that, surprisingly, I conquer! Now I love nothing more than to sit drawing something manually. I love having the sides of my hands all rainbow coloured from resting on a piece. So to PS the writing onto this image felt like a cheat! I um'd and ar'd for days over this. But in the end decided not to.... It will be something I have a play around with at a later date.... SO if the writing isn't straight or perfect, well, no it wont be because it's done by hand and I'm far from perfect!!!!

Cherry Picking

Its back to work this week, so I've posted a quickie! Hopefully I'll get to work on something a little more substantial at the weekend. I think Eli's going to be around for a bit now, and having a discussion with someone last night I expressed how I wanted to direct a sketch more towards the moody and dark side. Something with a little Gothic'y type edge, but every time I do a piece it ends up all bright and sunshiny! Maybe that's just who I am. Or maybe its time to explore a little...... Ive found some fantastic new markers from Letraset, that come complete with a choice of 300 colours. So this piece was about playing with the ink, and exploring layers more than anything. I'll try and dig deep into the moodier depths of their colour wheel and see what I come up with this weekend!