Braid

Just a quick 'n' dirty sketch. Haven't used plain pencil in a while, I'm rusty.

Back to painting, I think...

New Year

Woops, I haven't posted in a while. Happy New Year and all that jazz... Anyway to get back into the flow I'm posting a painting that's nearing completion:

I started at the end of last year, then came the holidays and the Christmas period which naturally meant it was put on the back burner. But it's nearly finished. It still needs some touch up work, some flowers don't look like flowers and the table is a little flat, otherwise it's pretty much done.

I have another canvas which is begging to be painted on... I just need to decide what I'm going to put on it. I wanted to do something graffiti-based, but it's not easy to emulate the style with paintbrushes. I could use spray paint but I decided that I'm not going to splash out extra on a bunch of cans when I have a ton of oils and acrylics, plus my can control isn't that good. Ahh, decisions.

I'm thinking about changing this blog's colour scheme. Dark greys and blacks are easy on the eyes and blue is one of my favourite colours, but it's not exactly a "happy" overall look.

I also plan to post more sketches and other ideas, rather than just posting final pieces. I need to get back into a sketching/doodling frame of mind, regardless of how crappy I think they'll turn out. If the Mayans and other wacky prophets are correct this will be my last year to ever post here, so I might as well take advantage of the time we have left :P


Roll on, 2012.

Duck and cover

(watercolour, gouache and pen, A4)

Here's a Mandarin Duck. I was going to draw a Mallard but the vibrant colours of this duck are too good to pass up.

I haven't done a pencil drawing in a long time so this was going to be a pencil drawing. I started off with Inktense watercolour pencils, but because I only have 12 different pencils my colour pallette is really limited. I changed my mind part-way through so now it's mostly watercolour paint and a little gouache.

Watercolour is quick, which is probably why it's my go-to medium (I do get impatient sometimes). I will do a drawing soon. It's been a while, I might have forgotten how to use pencils.

Mariposa

(watercolour, gouache and pen, A4)

More gouache, although you can't really tell.

Fishfish

(gouache, watercolour and pen, A4)

My first try at using gouache, a totally alien medium to me up until yesterday. It was actually really fun to use, it certainly made my fish look good. I can see why illustrators like it so much.

Illustration Friday: ferocious

RAWR!:

 (watercolour, A5)

I really wanted to follow the topic and draw something mean, dark, ferocious even, but for some reason I just couldn't think of anything. I must be having a creative block in terms of dark subject matter. Hmm, worrying...

At least her hair looks fierce.

It felt good to do another watercolour, I've been trying my hand at oil paints and it's been hit and miss (mostly miss). I think I miss the speed at which I need to paint with water-based media. Oil paint is great for blending and reworking but you need patience. Oh, and cleaning up afterwards is tedious.

(BTW I suck at creating characters)

As you can see I was going to try and draw a cartoony cat. That didn't pan out, but cute kid in a cat costume did. The ball of yarn was an afterthought, as the kid looked odd bearing her claws at nothing.

As usual my initial sketches are weird-looking. While others go into great detail and produce reams and reams of ideas, revisions, revisions of ideas, I usually doodle a few things in pen on a tiny scrap of paper (those are A6 sheets up there!) then transfer it onto the final paper. Thankfully my paper is very forgiving as this is when I end up working and reworking the pencil lines. I know I should do proper sketches beforehand but hey, it's not easy to change, especially when it works for me.

While I wait for a painting to dry...

...I broke out some white Conté crayons and decided to do a quick portrait. Unlike most of the portraits that I (attempt to) do in black on white paper, this one was reversed. Slightly different process, I think.

(White Conté crayon on black paper, A3)

This time I tried to keep it sketchy instead of smoothing it out too much, otherwise it starts to look too unnatural. That said, I've noticed that when I try a portrait, I usually end up drawing the eyes much bigger than they are supposed to be, thereby making it unnatural anyway. Hah. I guess that's my thing then. I must really like eyes.