Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Hill Giant

A new painting - watercolour, gouache and pencil crayon on hot press paper - 15 x 20, which is a bit larger than I normally work but I wanted to push this one a little. The scan didn't quite capture it. The piece is actually a bit darker, but all in all it's pretty close - thanks Patricia :)

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Recent Sketchbook - Woodland Elf

Some recent sketchbook activity. I like to start my work day, when possible, with some warm-up drawing and this elf picture is one of those. I don't normally finish them to this degree but somewhere along the line this one went from exercise to self expression - in other words I started to have fun with it. My scribbled warm-up became something I wanted to post here. Normally they end up in the recycle bin - not because I'm cavalier with my drawings but because in most cases they are loose scrawlings that serve no other purpose beyond a simple morning limber up.
More soon  :)

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Recent Sketchbook

Yes, it's been a little quiet around here lately. I'm just coming out of a sort of creative limbo. After I completed all the illustration roughs for the Lavender Blue project it was my intention to jump right into a couple of personal pieces I want to have ready for an illustration conference coming up in November. The plan was a simple one and of course ran off the rails almost immediately. Nothing I tried seemed to work so I took a break and went back to the sketchbook to try and sort things out and get some ideas going that I was actually excited about and keen to paint. Luckily this approach paid off and I now have several ideas I really like. Posted above are a couple of the sketch pages that helped get me back on track. With any luck I will be showing the finals here shortly.