Week 18 Grandmother

My children's grandmother hasn't read the rules.

This is a memory I have, from years ago, of my mum racing up a tree as soon as we arrived at her new house. My children weren't as keen as she was, she'd clearly been waiting for an excuse for weeks

I have a photo somewhere, but I can't find it. This will become the only record of the event :)

Drawn using wacom tablet in photoshop

Week 16 - Mirror

This week I created a new pattern. I doodled a host of frame ideas, on my A5 sketchbook, with the idea that I would tidy them up and straighten them. In the end I only rearranged them and added a tad of colour

and copied a street-photo from 1941 of children playing with a broken mirror. I didn't go searching for this, I happened across it in a magazine - a bit of serendipity :)

I started with the pink pen - because that's all I had to hand, and added the black for definition later.

Week 14 Camping

Firstly, I have used a sketch I made at the Port Eliot festival last year and added a digital collage to it.
I'd like a funky tent of my own - perhaps the sunflower one.

Week 10 Animal*

Sometimes the categories are so broad it's hard to know where to start - it's a little less broad than last week though!
So we have two smiling animals and one that makes me smile:
a quokka that my son took a photo of when he visited Rotness Island near Perth - they can't stop smiling
a goat and 
an elephant

Quokka

A5 Sketchbook, colour pencils

Goat
fine liner, A5 sketchbook, cartridge paper

Elephant
fine liner, A5 sketchbook, cartridge paper

Week 4 Swimming

4 images
An eclectic range of styles this week.
Inktense pencils, fineliners, brush pens, photoshopping... here's my swimming collection, in the order I created them.

Week 40 Carnival

3 images

I really didn't want to do feather clad women in teensy bikinis - it seemed to obvious. So I wracked my brains and one day Saint Saens', 'Carnival of the animals' popped into my head.

When I was feeling very keen, and hadn't realised what a busy week I had in store, I thought I would do all the animals...

Well, the swan was all I managed. I did a lot of research and learned lots in the process. The only thing to show for all that learning, in this blog post, is that Anna Pavlova's 'Dying Swan' in 'Swan Lake' was choreographed to the Swan movement in 'The Carnival of the animals'.

I watched her on youtube and looked a lot of her photos. I then drew five, five minute sketches with a brush pen. I used ink as a nod to #inktober.

The large one is the one I posted, but I have included the others because I wanted to share all of them.

 

Week 36 Dance

Week 36 Dance

Several images!

I've learned to make a repeated pattern in photoshop!

I'm very excited!

More about these little girls below.

     

I used photos I took at a music festival to make sketches, above are my three favourites.
Below is my first idea of how I would arrange them, as you can see from the main picture I got a bit carried away and created something a bit more complex. 
And last of all is a digital sketch I did of myself dancing.

Week 21 Stripes**

Two images

This week started off with a 'does what it says on the tin' illustration. I needed something bright and colourful after last week's sombre theme.
Simply stripes of watercolour on watercolour paper. The paper is white, but I had trouble brightening the white without losing the colour of the paint.
I haven't given it a title, but I was thinking about the sun rising behind trees in a wood.

The second offering is taken from a photo I took a couple of years ago at Whipsnade Zoo of a group of lemurs. I love how their very stripy tails are fanned out. I always intended to paint the photo at some point but at least this sketch is step in the right direction.
Pencil and fine liner on plain, copier paper.

I have also noticed a great white, untouched patch on the foremost lemur, oops!

I can hardly believe it, both my illustrations were picked this week! 

Feeling a little emotional tbh.

Week 17 fluffy

One image

Fluffy dandelion seeds
from a macro photo in my garden, I should weed more often.
oil pastel, enhanced with pixlr

Week 16 Structure

Two images

Chemical structures re-conceived as constellations - digital - pixlr

 A ruined abbey - acrylic sketch 

Week 15 Vietnam*

Two images

When I was thinking about what to do for this theme I heard references to 'Good Morning Vietnam' on the radio, so I researched some war images. I wanted to include the peace protests and anti war feeling going on in America at the time too.
This is a sort of mash up of three photos, with a pink pop of peace flowers in the guns.
I know the execution is not amazing - I spent longer thinking about it than actually doing it!
Pencil on copier paper and digital flowers added in pixlr.

So excited again to have been included in this week's picks!
Vietnam picks of the week on the 52 Week Illustration blog


There were so many beautiful images of Vietnam as it is now, so I thought I would redress the balance with this aerial view of picturesque islands.
Watercolour.

Week 14 Whimsy

Two images 

So this was harder than it seemed, or at least harder than a carefree prompt would suggest - being deliberately and self-consciously whimsical seems as wrong as telling everyone you are quirky. Surely that is for other people to notice for themselves?

My first illustration is based on a picture I remember from my childhood in the 1970's. It was a small picture, quietly filling wallspace in the background of Mindy's apartment in Mork and Mindy. I have always drawn birds based on this shape. I bet no one else even noticed it when Mork was calling Orson.

I drew the outlines of the sun and the bird and the rest just sort of came to me.
Pencils from WHSmith on A4 copier paper.

This one uses little characters who have individually appeared on my greetings cards in the past, but never together. I wasn't sure what their context was going to be, even after I had finished them. I wanted them to jumping around and clouds just didn't seem to be right and a trampoline would have had too severe edges to it - so I plumped on a bed, which felt like a a mixture of the two.
There WERE ten in the bed - what's happened?

Watercolour paint and paper. A3.
The colours aren't quite right as it's A3 and my scanner is A4. I took the picture with my phone and editted in Snapseed.

Week 9: Texture

2 images

I was a bit stumped and also very busy this week, so here are my two humble offerings.
Both with colour pencils, in the second one, the pencils were blended with baby oil on cotton buds.

Inspired by The Little Book of Hugs - Kathleen Keating

Random textures around where I was sitting.

Week 8: Coffee

1 image 

I had every intention of using coffee as paint. The effects are often stunning, however I remembered that I really hate the smell!
Here is my first contribution: 
Coffee sacks. Inktense pencils.
A bit clumsy still, but I am happier with this than my other 'pencil paintings'.

Week 7 Farm

8 images

I have tons of photos of farms taken on holidays to Wales and the West Country, and also from photography outings. My favourite location for lavender and sunflowers is Hitchin Lavender Farm.

Here are this week's offerings:

These sheep were on a farm in Dorset next to our campsite. A friend's son found that when he clapped they came to him. There was a whole field of ewes and one busy ram.
I intended to make a very simple line drawing but my fineliners came out, first for the grass, then the trees. Once up loaded I couldn't resist adding some bucket-fill using Pixlr editor.

This is a farm in Llaneglwys, in the Brecon Beacons near the bunkhouse, owned by my children's secondary school which we have stayed in regularly.
I wanted to use my new blendable pencils but found in my first attempt I was over working it and it just looked boring. This version was done in about five miutes and, to me, feels fresher and has more life.

And finally, we have Hitchin Lavender Farm. Maybe next time I will attempt the sunflower field as well.
Again, the quick sketch and wash found more favour with me than the one which I worked harder on and thought about more carefully. Below is the first attempt, before and after I added water to the inktense pencils.

Week 1 Theme Fairytale

2 images

The Silent Gondoliers

The Princess Bride