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!

Painted Love

And the second one inspired by Eli... everywhere I look at the moment its reminders of valentines day! I felt at Eli's age, whilst being all girlie it would still be bordering 'bover'd' side of things when it came to Valentines! The character is still progressing and there's plenty of ground work to do when it comes to perfecting the different mediums used, I seem to be having a problem with blues bleeding all over the show!!! But practise hopefully makes perfection. One thing I will say though is, the character is great as the inspiration is with me 24/7, and believe me she really is a character. Drawing in the clothes is almost like dress up, lol and from Eli's vivid imagination I really don't think there's nothing we cant do or conquer on paper!!!!....

Flying High

I told you I wasn't good at the technical side of things!!!! Ive submitted this old sketch to IF - Swarm. Not sure Ive done it correctly but hey!

Inspired by my E is for Eli sketchbook, the character seems to be cropping up all over the place at the moment! Eli had some natty little outfits for Christmas and these somehow have inspired her character further.... How? I don't quite know yet! Anyway, this one came about on a cold dismal day over the holiday period. Struck down with Flu, wrapped up, and going slightly stir crazy, I needed something to brighten my day..... and here it is.

Apologies

Yes I know, I haven't blogged for some time now.... Its not that I haven't been sketching away! Well not as much as I'd hope to have done. The whole family were hit quite badly over the Xmas period with the Flu virus, and what with one thing and another before I knew it my page stood blank. Fully recovered though I have managed to do a couple of pieces.... more to follow I promise.

Button Bear

I said I'd been working on something and here he is! CB Bear.... Hes one of a kind, and will remain that way. This one has taken several weeks and approached with a lot finer detail than the doodle bears. Texture has been added by much finer strokes, producing fur on the cross hatch base, rather than building up cross hatch layers. A total of 5 different coloured pens were used to create the fur. Hes off to a good home, and I'm looking forward to starting the next one.......

Snooks!

Snooks! Feline with attitude......

Please can I introduce Snooks! Our nickname for Noocar, Noocar being Racoon backwards because of the mask like feature on her face! Shes a feline with full on attitude and gives us many a giggle! She happens to be the grumpiest most stuck up cat of all. Five kids, four dogs, three cats and three acrobatic turtles.... its a busy house but there's always something to inspire. Snooks is just one of the feline capers I'm working on.

Here's the first draft!

Ive included a real photo of her, shes an American Ragdoll, and just a fat mass of fur! All the traits of a Ragdoll, moody, lady of the manor, regal and down right bossy, this is a typical pose for Snooks!

New pens in Moleskine

I bought some new pens, and wanted to play around with them. See what they were capable of. Couldn't really decide what to draw and ended up drawing a mass of butterflies! I like they way I can get brush strokes from the pens - will have to try something else, but they're not really fine enough for the bears! Ho hum - I'm sure they wont go to waste, and its all trial and error! I do quite like this though.

Bear Doodles

Dave! Another quickie from the bear doodle archive. He's what I call a proper bear, and based on one that we have here in the house amongst the mad collection. Cross hatching, building up, but again just a quickie.

Bear Doodles

Stan! Meet Stan!!! I have to admit what with Christmas and the fact Ive been working on a larger Bear, I haven't had time for a bear doodle for a few weeks. This ones from the archives as such. I mentioned earlier that there were technical issues with uploading the pictures, something that's being looked into, and I'm currently looking for a scanner that does my pictures justice. In the flesh Stan is dark and somewhat moody, full of woos!!!!!

I'm quite excited at posting the larger Bear Ive been working on, but for now that will have to wait until nearer the 25th.... from doing the quick Bear Doodles, the larger bear took a lot more time, but is based on the same principle of starting with a cross hatched base, almost like the weave on a real bear, and then layers of fur to build in depth and texture. Practise makes perfect, so each one looks different and in my opinion they get better. But that's just my opinion!!!

E is for Eli!

B is for Burp! not very lady like but something you find amusing when it just pops out!

Another entry from Eli's moleskine, and yes! it's not very ladylike at all, but she titters every time excusing herself through laughter. Hopefully she'll grow out of it.

Summer Seeds

Another mad monk moleskine page! This new technique is featuring a lot at the moment, and Ive just produced some cheery Christmas cards using this blended pastel background. I love the softness it gives, but then there's an animated feel once the ink goes on. These flying monks are building towards some new characters in my head at the moment so stay tuned! I drew this one a couple of weeks ago now, before the weather turned bitterly cold. In fact the morning I finished this one we had our very first scattering of snow! Fire roaring, I don't think I put pen or paper down all day and went straight from this one to the 'First Snowfall' scene I first posted.... I really cant wait all through the seasons to produce other mad monk entries, its just too long til spring!!!!