2015 Illustrations

Now I did an awful lot of illustrating in 2015 including two short storybooks and over thirty-one ink drawings for the Inktober challenge – wow!

However, this post isn’t about any of those drawings. Nope these are the other seven illustrations I created in 2015, which included three commissions. I really was having a lucky year for commissions!

I’ll start off with the largest of the set that wasn’t a commission. The below raven was a self-set challenge to draw an entirely black bird with its wings in perspective. I’ll admit I struggled with placing the initial sketch and it took some time to get my head around the skewed proportions. All in all, I think I was happy with the outcome. That said if I were to try a similar feat again I think I will incorporate more colours to blend a black rather than sticking to the true black pencils and pens I have in my sets.

 The Raven - Letter approx. 11 x 8.5”

Waterman ink wash, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

Speaking of black and white subjects the below rose was a nice little book cover commission for a novel titled Dark Moments written by Emma Brown and published by Darcy Nybo. Obviously the version I am showing here is the one without the typography added.

 Dark Moments - book cover commission – 9 x 6”

Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on Bristol vellum card.

Pure black background added digitally.

The author was very clear about wanting a white rose with water droplets on a pure black background. I worked from a reference photo to create the sketch and shaded it using watercolour markers. Since the markers could never create a pure black background and the version sold was to be a digital copy, I then took the image into Photoshop to create the solid backdrop as required. I am not a great fan of drawing realistic flowers and don’t consider the subject one of my fortes, especially not roses! Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the end result turned out.

Now this below commission is one that I found very difficult to complete.

 Chloe – commission Letter approx. 11 x 8.5”

Waterman ink, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

It came about because a couple saw my previous illustration of Cat in a Sunbeam hanging in the local gallery. They asked if it would be possible for me to create a similar portrait of their daughter’s cat Chloe. Well of course I just couldn’t say no! Thankfully I had some paper with a similar ink wash. (That ink is one I just cannot find a good replacement for so I guess I won’t be making many more with that wonderful shade of brown for a backdrop.) I had quite a long time to complete the piece but decided to work on it solidly every day for a week and build it up section at a time. Trust me, mottled fur that goes in several directions is a good way to go cross-eyed and lose your place in a drawing! Still it was an excellent challenge since cats are a favourite subject of mine and I knew this was going to be a birthday gift for the owner.

Next up the below illustration is an unusual commission that I rather revered.

 The Mask – commission 6 x 4”

Waterman ink, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

This is a portrait of a good online friend of mine who asked if I could recreate his photograph. It’s not often I get asked to draw people even though I quite enjoy it and of course I really loved the focal point of the mask. We agreed on a price and size ahead of time as one should and I was away! I really enjoyed playing with textures for the background of this and walked him through every evolution of the illustration to ensure he was happy with the progress. Once the drawing was complete I popped it in the mail (and crossed my fingers that it made it to the US!!). He was so excited to receive it and very pleased with the final product– hooray! :D

On an entirely different note … the below is a requested image from my beloved husband. He had been asking for the longest time if I would make a portrait of one of his feline characters so I decided I would surprise him with a full illustration just like those I had previously made for my sister blog of Black Wednesday Isle. Well you knew there had to be at least one story related sketch in here!

 Eyl’Yti – character portrait - Letter approx. 11 x 8.5”

Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on cartridge paper.

This fellow’s name is Eyl’Yti (pronounced eye-lit-eye). I didn’t go so far as to make a fictional interview with him since I am no longer making portraits for the other blog but my hubby was happy with my rendition of his character none-the-less.

This next one below is one of those little scrat sketches that I thought was really interesting and I’m certain no else did!

 

Unyielding – 5x4”

Parker, Indian and Micron ink plus gold acrylic paint on Bristol vellum card.

Beginning as a leftover sheet from the Inktober challenge I got really into the idea of time as a concept. The little figurines being examples of how we perceive, use or misuse our time. I like questioning if we are reaching, escaping, waiting, holding on to, letting go of or simply just watching our time pass us by. Yeah I can see why this concept was a weird one lol. I still really like it as a personal piece but that might be because I love pocket watches more than anything else!

Now I know it isn’t xmas right now at the time of posting but since this was one of the last illustrations I created in 2015 it made sense to end this blog post with it.

 Season’s Greetings – 4 x 5”

Waterman ink, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

It’s just a fun little sketch that I wanted to make as an alternative to all my previous ‘grumpy’ Sharlene over the holidays sketches, oh and yes to add in our adopted cat Pudding too. So a very happy season’s greetings from the 2015 cartoon version of me and the cat! ^_^

2015 Paintings

So 2015 turned into quite a mixed bag of work once again, including some very interesting projects I had not previously attempted. I didn’t make a great deal of paintings this year but then my focus was drawn in several directions. Still those I did create are shown below.

Starting off with acrylic paintings I decided I would try my hand at painting boxes and creating some tiny little magnets out of foam. The idea was to stretch the usage of my paint, test out those lovely iridescent colours and generally see if I could paint/create objects as well as my standard canvas and cradle boards.

Acrylic

The above butterfly box was a reconditioned item and has a push lid as opposed to a clasp like the below snail box. I’ll admit I struggled with the surface of the butterfly box and both pieces ended up taking an awful long longer than I anticipated when I started!

The below three foam blocks were much faster to create but very fiddly as they are much smaller than I am used to painting. The foam was an interesting and unusual surface to work into and surprisingly more solid and forgiving than I thought it would be. I also got in a bit of a pickle with the superglue when trying to affix magnets to the reverse, especially on the first one because I had magnetic strip that came in a roll and thus did not want to be laid flat… oh and just glue in general, never let me loose with superglue lol!

Night Sails (left) 1.75 x 2.5" and Moonlight (right) 1.75 x 2.5"

Posy - 2.5 x 1.75"

The only other acrylic project I did this year was part of a neat little show called Inter-generational Art. The idea of this was to bring together the young an old to work on a singular piece between them. Naturally I was interested in collaborating so Petrina offered up one of her charcoal sketches.

Her sketch immediately gave me an idea but I was running a little short on time for the deadline and wasn't used to working on something so large!

So here's a picture of me hard at work: 

I'm pretty sure this was the day before the deadline and as you can see I haven't even started lol!

Still I did start and finish and we mounted the art just in time for acceptance into the show :)

Here's a better picture of Petrina and I with the finished piece:

Next up are the few oil paintings in made in 2015. Allure, Clouds and The Bonfire are all the same size since I got gifted some wooden slats to work on. Of course then as with any arty gift I just had to test them out and see what could be done.

Oil

Allure - 3 x 7" Oil on wooden panel

The above was the most successful of the three in my opinion but then it is also the most detailed and orientates around my favourite subject of tigers.

Clouds - 3 x 7" Oil on wooden panel 

Clouds was an experiment to see if I could work in a different palette, specifically in pastels and paler colours to my beloved dark blacks and vibrant greens. I think by the end I couldn’t decide if the landscape shown were dark clouds or impressionistic mountains but I achieved my goal at least.

The Bonfire - 7 x 3" Oil on wooden panel

This was an experiment in speed and layering. I wanted the dark background to remain fairly thin to show the wood grain and the flames to be quite thick and sticker. It’s a simple piece no doubt but sometimes simple is best.

Up next, well I went back into my love of fantasy and decided to create another dragon eye. This time I went for a blue palette instead of red and some unusual scale shapes around the eye. For a cool toned piece, I think it is quite interesting.

Serous Eye - 6 x 6" Oil on cradle board

This next piece was created and displayed in a show at the local gallery. An unusual entry perhaps both in size, style and subject but I had a clear cut vision for this piece. My aim was to move from cold tones to warm ones as you travel down the painting with the staircase leading your eye downward into the light of the study. I was told it was well-received at the show so hooray! ^_^

The Study 13 x 5.75

(And we won’t mention that yes that’s an elf character at the desk, so yes, this another story-related painting … shhh…!! xD)

Mural

An entirely different painting project that occurred in 2015 was the opportunity to paint a square of the planned local mural. An odd one for me, trying to paint one square of random colours that would eventually make up the whole picture using a type of paint I was unfamiliar with onto a metal sheet.

 This one had me scratching my head quite a bit since I found the given paint and surface very difficult to use. I did complete my square in good time for the final which as you can see from the below photograph was quite a varied piece. So wonderful to know that I was able to join in and be part of a large scale collaboration that now stands proudly in Lake Country :)

Mural - One 12 x 12" square

Photograph of complete mural.

Digital

Last but by no means least I was commissioned to create not one but two digital book covers this year! :D

Always ready for a challenge I worked very hard on these pieces and it took quite a bit of learning new techniques to get them working as the authors wanted. I designed custom brushes and palettes that would be invaluable for future projects that is if my laptop hadn’t decided to have massive hard drive failure at the beginning of October. Argh >.<

The good news is that I didn’t lose any of my work -phew!- Only the settings I had created for my software were pushed back to default since I had to reinstall everything. Glad to say that my laptop was fixed quite quickly and didn’t interfere with any deadlines, unless you count putting up examples of work for Inktober every day – that took a bit of playing catch up!

Obviously both of the below images are missing their written content. Neither of the books have been published yet.

The Year of Us – book cover commission

My first rendition of the leaves in this piece wasn’t very good at all but I quickly learnt that making custom brushes wasn’t difficult and gave a much better effect. Praise be to my Intuous tablet too for having a good amount of pressure sensitivity.

The Lost Server – book cover commission

This cover was the bigger project of the two. While the background came together quite quickly, the characters took a great deal more work. Refining what the characters should look like took a great deal of back and forth questions between the author and myself, eye colour, hair colour, clothing and even attitude of the characters were discussed. Then came the clincher; the floating castle.

This is part of the story I enjoy re-telling as an example of just how much clarity is required when you ask someone to design something for you. Now we had been communicating well and I had carefully taken down all the details for the characters but for whatever reason I didn’t ask enough questions about the ‘floating castle.’ (top left of the painting)

My brain just simply said ‘yep OK I know what that looks like,’ and off I went to sketch it up. I am glad that my first scribble for it was literally a scribble and was based off of a Myazaki style castle (though looked more like a dalek as the client joked – oh dear, lol), so next I thought they wanted an English castle…nope wrong again, we’re talking a Chinese style temple here! 

Finally, I asked for a reference photo of the building, which is what I should have done in the first place. Live and learn on that one, and never be too embarrassed to ask your client to be more specific! Glad to say that they were very patient with me and that it all worked out well in the end ^_^

Also now whenever someone isn't specific or I forget to ask I get to call the situation, 'another dratted floating castle!' xD

2014 ACEOs

Once again I made a LOT of ACEOs in 2014, 71 of them by my count – wow!

So to present them this time, I have tried to group them in a semi-logical order. Yes, this post is going to be quite full so I will try and not swamp you too much!

I got a bit more experimental this year particularly since I had been gifted some very neat acrylics including iridescent paints and my favourite a little tub of phosphorescent acrylic. *squee* Phosphorescent for those that are not familiar with the term is glow-in-the-dark, UV (black light) reactive paint. I am a sucker when it comes to anything that sparkles or glows. 

I was also interested to discover what effects could be created using this medium since in natural light it is almost clear and I liked the idea of having aspects hidden in the art that could only be viewed in total darkness. I don’t feel I achieved the hidden aspect part well but I did have fun and was pleased with the below four pieces that I made. Each is shown with a photograph taken next to my UV/Black light lamp, because yes I already had one just hanging around even before I got the phosphorescent paint!

The top two here were created on paper while the bottom two were painted on ACEO sized woodblocks. The top left is the outlier of the group and thereby by default more interesting because I worked on a Bristol vellum card using watercolour markers, pen and coloured pencils as the base before applying the paint. Top right was all acrylic on a Strathmore illustration board, it’s titled ‘the Ibegon,’ with reference to the green tendrils; this is a fictional, carnivorous plant I created for my narrative so while the visual subject of the art card is the skull the underlying idea was about the plant. And I do love my puns, the name, ‘ibegon,’ is meant to be pronounced ‘eebegone’ as in ‘he be gone,’ which is what happens if you step on one of these, maybe then they should have been ‘you be gone’ -Oh I can hear the *groans* already lol.

 Back to the art, the bottom two woodblocks in this set were slightly different. The skull was painted onto pure wood and the moon had a canvas surface laid over the wood. Interesting to see how the acrylics worked on each of these.

Onwards then and another experiment I tried this year was collage. I was working toward the theme of first anniversary and as soon as I realised that the first wedding anniversary is represented by paper, clocks and string I had my goal. I’m not certain about how successful the two pieces I made for this theme were but it was an interesting thing to try. Also discovered that I make twice the mess with glue than I do with paint and ink xD Oh well.

Back to my regular mediums; below are the other ACEOs that I created using paint in 2014. There are a few oil ones here but again I was mostly testing out the new acrylics and having some fun ^_^

Of course I continued illustrating and made many illustrated cards too. I would say that my art falls into two styles which got coined by the proprietor of the local gallery/coffee house as ‘cute and creepy.’

So, yup, I do cute and creepy and love both realism and fantasy.

 I’ll start with the realism ones. I will say that Hyper-realism is great to witness but I don’t think it’s something I would want to achieve (not sure I even could!). I prefer to work in a way that allows the viewer to know it is art and not a photograph or reproduction. Hyper-realism artists have an awesome talent but I like a little splatter in my own work and the art I buy.

I use photo references for all my ‘realism’ pieces and consider them as good practice to learn more about the subjects I enjoy painting and illustrating.

Fantasy pieces are always fun; I never quite know where they will go. The freedom! Ah and argh, freedom to use all I have learnt from realism and twist it any way I choose is great but then it’s also frustrating. Sometimes too many options work against me! Still I feel more alive when creating fantasy pieces even if they don’t always turn out quite as shiny as the realism ones.

Ah yes, you knew it was coming; something that involves my narrative yet again. You know the one, that one I have still not finished writing after eight years or so lol. Well book in me or not I have had fun drawing the characters from it especially during those times when redrafting and writing got far too tiresome. It is a bonus for me to be able to switch to art when my writing brain falls over.

Below then are ACEOs I made using some of my original characters. They are subjects I love so these tend to come out quite naturally. I found photo references for most of my characters by searching up the face shapes I could ‘see’ in my head and then used those as a base to draw from. Since I created head-shot portraits for my characters I can always look back at those when I want to make a new piece of art based on any one of them. Of course I have my favourites and there are some that work better in visual format than others.

One great bonus this year and a happy note to end on is that I got commissioned by my sister-in-law to create two ACEOs of her daughter named Liv. She gave me several photographs to work from and explained that, at that time, Liv was obsessed with slugs and snails. Liv would bring them in from the garden in her hand like a special present and would sit and watch them. These are Swedish slugs too so a bit more yellow than the ones I grew up with. I thought this was an excellent challenge! She was very happy with the final pieces, as was Liv who was utterly delighted to receive the art in the mail ^_^

On top of all of that another person was very endeared in my little drawings of Liv and her slug. That person was a local author and publisher named Darcy Nybo. Darcy decide that she liked the drawings so much that Liv should be her character named Emma Jean for a short story she had in mind. In 2015 we worked together to create the short story, ‘Emma Jean Finds a Friend.’ Although I guess I should save that for the 2015 post.

Well I hope you enjoyed this rather long entry and look forward to telling all about the short stories Darcy and I worked on in 2015 that made a young girl in Sweden a star without knowing it!

See you next time :)

2014 Illustrations

 2014 turned out to be quite the interesting year for illustrations. Or maybe random would be a more fitting description.

I certainly think my skills improved throughout the year which I credit to the previous year’s practice creating miniatures. I was amazed how much that practice paid off and think it shows when I switch to larger illustrations. This year I also happened to create the smallest illustration I have ever made so let’s start there!

Fellow artist Sea Dean introduced me to this niche little movement of postage stamp art. The operation is run by Friends and Faux https://friendsandfaux.wordpress.com/info/ and the idea is that each artist creates an original piece of art, the size of a postage stamp, in the allotted spaces on the reverse and then mails it forward to another artist until all the slots are filled. Once it is complete the postcard is returned to Friends and Faux to be displayed. Below is my teeny tiny addition to the postcard I was sent followed by the postcard as it was when I sent it off to its next destination.

Lion Cub postage stamp

Watercolour markers, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

Postage stamp, approx. 0.9 x 0.6” (or 2.5 x 1.5cm)

Friends and Faux Postcard ready to be mailed!

Next up is a piece I started in 2013 but never quite got around to finishing, that is until January 2014 when I decided I really must put the final touches to it. Completing the below magpie was very satisfying especially since it had been on my ‘to do’ list for quite some time. I’m not sure why but I really like magpies (aside the awful noise they make) and had wanted to make a larger illustration of one for quite some time. I also wanted the challenge of attempting to draw wings in perspective and boy was it a challenge. I was pleased with how this turned out and it was also well received among my peers.

Even better this image ended up being selected for use by Darcy Nybo in her short children’s story named Emma Jean Finds a Friend, fantastic! More on Darcy and story illustrations later though since that didn’t happen until 2015.

Treasure Seeker

Waterman ink, Prismacolour pencils, Micron ink and Sakura white gel pen on cartridge paper.

Letter, approx. 11 x 8”

The below illustration was created for a monthly competition set out by Colored Pencil Magazine. I recall agonizing over this illustration for a very long time. It took well over a week of short (3-4hr) drawing sessions to reach completion. Oddly, once I decided to draw the line and call it done, I was quite dissatisfied with the final. I think this occurred purely because I stared at it for far too long and because I compared it to the many other artists who drew from the same image. After a time, I grew to love it and now believe it is possibly my best realistic cat portrait to date!

One honour was that Colored Pencil Magazine bumped me into their advanced category instead of adding me to the beginner section as I had specified. I chose beginner because it is very rare for me to work purely in coloured pencil and nothing else. Hey-ho they obviously assumed I was a pro with this medium! Best of all this kitty was matted and framed and has now found a new forever home. I’ll admit I was a touch sad to see it go but also ecstatic to know that the buyers fell in love with the piece – there is no greater accolade as an artist. ^_^

Cat in a Sunbeam

Waterman ink, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

Letter, 8.5 x 11”

Below is one of those pieces that just seemed to sit on my desk forever. True it is a fairly complex layout but somehow it always got put on the back-burner. The reason for this is probably because I had so much else going on and I knew that this piece could wait. Yes, it’s another story related image! I quite enjoy creating layouts so it was a lot of fun trying to design what a section of the central part of the main city would look like. The large block on the left that has a diamond pattern is part of a huge spiral tower. The diamond shapes are meant to be slotted together pieces of vibrant green glass that shimmer when they catch the sunlight. I’m assuming they don’t reflect enough light to start any fires!! I do hope to eventually colour this layout, perhaps digitally but hey that might take another three years.

Draygun City Layout

Prismacolour col-erase pencils on cartridge paper

Letter, 8.5 x 11”

The below three illustrations were created for an Erotic art show. Now ‘erotic’ would not be my usual choice of subject but I thought it would be interesting to give it a go. I decided not to do anything too risqué, so don’t get your hopes up lol. Racy art really isn’t my thing and of course my mind went straight to my fictional characters. Since I nearly always draw the figures of my characters before I clothe them I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to do a few shirtless examples. I chose men over women because I figured more artists would draw women and popping a few men in there, even cartoonish ones might balance it out.

We were also asked to add a one-line statement for each entry so I decided to get artsy and make a short poem for each one which I will include under the pictures. Also, yes, these three characters were purposefully designed to look similar to one another.

This first one below is actually a print from one of my original ACEOs that I first created for a theme week challenge in one of the ACEO groups I belong to. I think the theme was either roses or valentines but can’t quite remember. This image was the catalyst for the theme of my ‘erotic’ pieces and dictated which other two characters I would draw. I’m not sure why I decided to take this route because I’m not well practiced at drawing flowers and roses aren’t something I revere trying to render.

The character’s name is Adeth and the print was created using Hahnemuhle fine art paper then embellished using watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils. I decided to recolour and re-edge the whole image to make the colours more vibrant than the original so that it would better tie in with the rest of the set.

Roses are Red

Embellished Print, Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on Hahnemuhle fine art paper

Letter, approx. 11 x 8.5”

Statement:

Roses are Red and Adeth is blue,

This poet’s hand outstretched

In hopes you approve.

The below character is named Luk. I decided to add a bit of magic into this one with the telekinetic floating rose petals. This character is meant to look a bit sickly, mean and um, well strange since he isn’t the most balanced of personas. I imagine being in Luk’s boudoir would make anyone feel uncomfortable, including him lol!

His World

Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on Bristol vellum card

Letter, 11 x 8.5”

Statement:

Fragile beauty and broken grace,

A fading flower reflects this space,

Stay here he beckons and my world embrace.

Another weird one; the below character is named Kale (yes like the vegetable) and he’s a few to the left of sanity. What I really wanted to capture with this piece was a piercing gaze which I think I achieved. I imagine locking eyes with this character to feel quite intense as though he is looking right into or through you.

Awakening

Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on Bristol vellum card

Letter, 11 x 8.5”

Statement:

Bright night of jagged thorns,

Twisted vines at breaking dawn,

Light once lost, ever scorned,

Awaken now to new ties formed.

Sadly, the show ended up being cancelled due to lack of interest. This last piece however did make it into a different show to which I attended the opening. I recall it was winter and utterly freezing outside so I had on a huge purple duffel coat with my fluffy hood drawn tight to a close. The second we stepped into the gallery I roasted in that coat because it was a packed out with people! I’ll admit I was surprised just how many folks turned out to see the art on display that night and being nervous just made me sweat even more intolerably – argh!

Glad to say I did get to speak to a few of the patrons despite the fact that it was difficult to hear anyone above the chatter. I was asked by one person what the roses meant in ‘Awakening.’ They wanted to know the significance of the vines being threaded through his arms. To this day I don’t have a great answer to that question beyond, ‘he’s an insane and sadistic character that self-heals.’ It was an answer that got a look of intrigue that’s for sure!

Anyway, that’s all from me for this entry, see you again next time :)