Illustration Friday: giant

My entry for Illustration Friday, this week's topic, "giant"

Yesterday I was at a school summer fair that my cousin was DJing for, with it's typical bouncy castle, face painting and tombola stands. One of the prizes at one tombola stand was a big panda bear holding a heart. The first thing I thought was "I don't have a teddy, OMG I want it", then I found out I couldn't have it because it was a kids-only tombola :(

Later that day I saw a little girl running around and playing with her friends, while carrying a giant blue shark plushie on her head. She'd won it from the same tombola stand where the panda was, which is weird because I didn't even see it at the stand.

It was hard to sketch because as with most little kids she wouldn't stay still, and I didn't bring my camera so I couldn't draw from a photo. So this was really rushed. My proportions and lack of skill at drawing human form really shows in the 10 or so minutes I did this in. But that's fine, at least it's something and it keeps me from thinking about what the hell I'm gonna paint.

So sharks, as well as being carnivorous toothy sea-beasts can also be fodder for cuddliness... Hmm, imagine that.

Plucking daisies

Just a little nothing...

(watercolour pencil on watercolour paper, A5)

I've got a huge artist's block right now. The enormity of the blank canvas has hit me and I've got like 5-10 different ideas visualised but only 1 canvas, and the more I think about what to do, the more the ideas all swirl into each other and seem like a huge mess of crap. I also really want to use oil paints but I've never used oil paints, and the idea of using them seems quite daunting. I think I'm gonna have to do some practice.

Illustration Friday: trail

My entry for Illustration Friday, this week's topic, "trail"

(pen on watercolour paper, A5)

The first thing that came to my mind after seeing "trail" in my inbox on Friday was "snail", and not just because they both rhyme. I didn't get around to doing this until today, it was another of those "don't think too hard about the subject" pictures, so I just did it freehand off the top of my head.

I scribbled with aqua Promarkers and blended them like watercolours, then I added some highlights with my favourite white illustration ink pen :) In total it took about 40 minutes to do and that includes time taken for the paper to dry to a workable state so I could use the ink pen.

Today I bought a canvas. I think I know what I want to put on it but I've never painted on canvas before... so that should be fun. I don't know when I'll start it but I'll post the end disaster if and when it's done :D

Change clothes

Not a major update, I just decided to change my avatar, because I can.

My old one is from an obscure (in everywhere but Japan, that is) claymation called Taiko Drum Master (Taiko no Tatsujin), based on the crazy arcade game of the same name.

I always thought the animal under the mask was a fat cat, turns out (thanks to wikipedia) it's a teddy bear. I also thought the mask was a cat, turns out it's a fox. Yeah, you see it now.

My new one is from a bunch of doodles that I did while house-sitting for a certain somebody :)

At the time I looked more like the one on the right, but seeing as I don't remember the last time I had a haircut I now look more like the one on the left.

Jag...

Hey me, what's up? Here's that jaguar you were painting:

(watercolour, A3)

Some of the spots on his face bled, and the colour is slightly washed out. That's partly due to the way I photographed it as well as it being a watercolour. It adds to the charm dammit, and at least I wasn't tempted to over-paint.

And here's some WIP's:

I have to stretch out the paper and fix it down properly next time. Even with a liberal soaking and double masking tape it still managed to buckle.

I'm feeling to do something unrealistic, maybe something surreal... I watched an art programme about Dalí over the weekend and it was pretty inspiring. It kind of reminded me of my college days, even though I spent most of my art lessons drawing realistically.

'til next time, see you later me.

Aquarius

Maybe I should have waited until next January to post this:

(oil pastel on card)

When I was first introduced to oil pastels in high school I hated them with a passion. I remember drawing a still life one day and every time I tried to add more pastel on top of a previous layer, the previous layer would come off. It was really frustrating. The problem with that still life turned out to be the really crappy card I was given to draw on. Of course practice makes (almost) perfect, and I did end up drawing a huge A1 piece in college, but I still didn't like them. So, seeing as I haven't used oil pastels in over 10 years and my pastel set is around about the same age, this was a bit more of an experiment with those vintage sticks than anything else. I guess they stood the test of time :)

Illustration Friday: fearless

My entry for Illustration Friday, this week's topic, "fearless"

A friendly game of cat and mouse...

I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. It's one of the few times where I've used watercolour and the end result actually looks like a watercolour painting. Still, I had to restrain myself from making it overly detailed... old habits die hard :)