Illustration Friday - Perspective

Dorothy has a long journey ahead of her on the yellow brick road.......

I didn't get to finish my piece for last weeks Illustration Friday but I have created a canvas which i'm putting the finishing touches to, I shall post it up when it's done. Very tired today due to my 3 year old keeping me up half the night. Both my boys seem to have suffered from night terrors at one time or another poor little things. Hopefully tonight he'll have some sweet dreams.....

Mixed Media Monday - Mothers and Daughters

Well it's been a little while since I participated in Mixed Media Monday. This week the theme is Mothers and Daughters. Because I am a mother of two boys I looked at this theme from my point of view as a child and the relationship with my mother. I don't think you can ever feel more safe or secure than when your mother held you as a baby all snuggled up. I have memories of my mum nursing me when I was quite small and she used to sing me 'Amazing Grace' I love memories like that! My mum and I are great friends and have done, and continue to do lots together. My mum introduced me to art and used to take me along to her evening classes with her when I was just 10. Since then we have had this wonderful bond through art and I value her opinion so much when it comes to my work. Thanks mam!!! I dedicate this piece to you!

I used so many different materials in this one. I had great fun. I used acrylic paints, crackle medium. The flowers are cut out from paper which looked to be hand made and pressed with real leaves and petals in it. I painted a light wash of acrylic on these to brighten up the flowers which seemed to give them a felt look. I also used coloured pencils and some ink and my iridescant paints!!! I have missed you Mixed Media Monday!

Illustration Friday - Frozen

When I started working on this piece I wasn't sure where it was going to take me. But my Bampi (grandad) seemed to appear in my work yet again. When I thought of frozen I thought of a snowman and whilst I was drawing him I realised that Bampi and I needed to be in the picture too, one of my many fond memories of my Bampi was when we built a snowman out in his front garden. We were so proud of ourselves and I remember being very sad when he melted and disappeared.......the snowman that is, not Bampi ;0)

I used watercolours, coloured pencil and ink for this one. Water colour seems to give my work a softer feel than those very bright vibrant acrylics. But I think for this piece soft was best.

Little Witch

Here is another experiment using the same patterned paper. I just drew straight on to the patterned paper with coloured pencil then out lined it in ink. It was nice to make a change from acrylic paint as I really do favour that most of the time I just love how vibrant the acrylic paints are but I would like to experiment with alot more materials.

Pirate Lady!!

Last Friday it was 'Talk like a pirate day' and in honour of this special occasion my youngest's day care centre decided everyone should dress up like a pirate. So that inspired me to paint this picture as both my boys love pirates but you never really see a girl pirate so i thought I'd try and paint one. I took a picture of the canvas and also a scan just to see if there was much difference in the quality of the pictures. In the photo you can see more as the canvas is slightly bigger than A4 so was a bit harder to scan.

Journal page

Well I've been wanting to start my own journal for a while now after being inspired by lots of my blog friends. So last week I went hunting for a journal. Now I'm not sure what sort of book people use but when I went to a few art shops in town they didn't really seem to have what I was looking for. So I ended up buying a visual diary which I was told wasn't the greatest to paint on but I thought I'd take my chances anyway. What sort of books do other people use?

Anyway, I'm not sure if there are any 'rules' to keeping journals but I decided to start mine off with a piece that was inspired by the wild weather we've been having over here. A few nights ago myself and my husband and two boys were lying awake for hours while the power went on and off and we could hear the wind howling outside. Quite scary for the kids as we felt that the roof would blow off.

So this is my first attempt in my journal. Painted in acrylic paint I used that crackle paint effect as I was practising for my canvas in my previous post. I also used some coloured pencil and black pen.

Illustration Friday - Wrapped

Just a quick one this week in my diary. When I saw the word for this week I immediately thought of 'pass the parcel'. It takes so long to wrap the thing up but once they start the game your master piece ends up all over the room within minutes. I also think that if you watch a game of pass the parcel with little kids you can see the impatience, and cranky faces on the ones that just never quite get it at the right time....oh it's hard being a kid sometimes hehehe.

This was done in pencil with some acrylic paint and coloured pencil on top.

Illustration Friday - Modify

'Riley thought that if he modified his bike he might finally be able to fly. It never quite worked of course but he had lots of fun trying.'

This was inspired by my nearly 3 year old Riley. He's a right little 'Mr Fix it' and loves to play with his tools and 'works' on his little bike for hours. I can picture the plans that might pop into his head as to what he might be able to do to improve it.

Illustration Friday - Idle

This was a bit of an experiment for me today. I decided to do a bit of mixed media and collage. I bought some textured paper and gave it a go!

The image that came into my head when I thought of 'Idle' was of this little old tortoise. In his early years he was a bit of a goer racing around from one thing to another but as time ticked on he became a bit idle. But that's not a bad thing he now gets to read the classics in his comfy chair!

Mixed Media Monday - 'Charming Junk'/Gift

This is a piece that I have done for a friend that has just had a baby. She lives in Queensland on the coast so I decided to create a picture that shows how I imagine her little girl will be as she gets older growing up in such a lovely place. Her little girl is called Cameron so I included the name in the piece. I am going to frame it then post it, I hope they like it.

I also thought I could submit it for this weeks mixed media Monday. It's not quite junk but I have recycled some news paper which would other wise have ended up in the bottom of our bird cage. Now it's a gift!!

Illustration Friday - Tango

When I saw the theme this week, the image that came into my head straight away was frogs, don't ask me why. I just love them and think that they have a lot of character. Yesterday we took the boys to the zoo and there in the reptile section were some green tree frogs. They are so beautiful we took a picture. The frogs that I used in my illustration are green tree frogs from Costa Rica that I found on the net, the markings/colouring is pretty much what I painted my frogs like. Stunning bright colours. So the scene that I ended up painting is a family of frogs, with the parents having a nice tango on a lily pad on a summers evening. With the kids watching. I really enjoyed doing this one, it was fun! I've posted up the pic we took of the frog at the zoo yesterday which gave me the inspiration.

Angel

This is something I've been working on for a week now, and I just can't seem to get it right......I feel like it's finished now but something isn't quite right with it. Does anyone else have this happen sometimes? Perhaps it's just because it doesn't match what was in my head. I don't know...anyway I still like it and i'll just keep it with my collection that I'm building up. I used acrylic paints but also tried coloured pencil over the top to give the face a bit more depth as it felt flat to me and the back ground was too flat so I went over it with light colours....anyway here it is!

Illustration Friday - Hollow

"Thus much for thy assurance know; a hollow friend is but a hellish foe". - Nicholas Breton

When I saw this week's word the picture that formed in my head quickly was one of sadness. 'Hollow' makes me think of someone that is mourning something, or someone.....missing something.....feeling empty. So I painted this lady. Then I decided to see if I could find a quote that I could put along with it. I came across this one by an old English poet, Nicholas Breton. I loved the quote straight away. I think it goes with my picture very well. Perhaps this lady is feeling hollow because a friend that she relied on and thought was true to her, turned out to be the opposite?

Mixed Media Monday - Play

This piece seemed to fit the theme for Mixed Media Monday. This character is based on my wonderful cousin Clare! It doesn't matter how old we are I'll always see her as the 17 year old, who used to have her own distinct style, and would wear tie dyed shorts with her doc martins, she was obsessed with the 60's especially The Beatles and John Lennon and would play their records over and over, she introduced me to that wonderful music. I always wanted to be like her but somehow when I wore the tie dyed pants and doc martins I just looked ridiculous heheh. Nowadays Clarey is a very talented hand bag designer and Mother to a 1 year old daughter and 4 year old step son. Lucky for me she is just living in the same town and emigrated like myself to Australia!!! Hooray!!!

'Little girl' - Me?

I guess I'm going through the family now....I've been working more on creating some characters just so I can practice drawing people and you could say that this little girl is me. I was quite an awkward little girl, not girly girl, and not a tom boy but somewhere in between. I was all arms and legs and I suppose I was trying to draw myself in this picture looking a little awkward.

Nanny

Well I just couldn't draw my Bampi without drawing my Nanny!! She was a lovely nanny who used to fill me up with cups of tea, bread and jam and cakes after school everyday....much to my mother's dismay when I wouldn't eat dinner!!!

I just used the same mediums for this one, I'm not as happy with it as Bampi's picture but I think that's because she needs to be a bit plumper, but I thought I'd post it anyway as I enjoyed doing it!!

Illustration Friday - Shaky

This picture is inspired by a true story, only a moustache has been added to proctect the innocent.

My Bampi (Grandad) used to love to help us around the house if something needed fixing. Much to my mothers dismay when he decided he wanted to fix our washing line and we found him shimmying (not sure how to spell that) up the top trying to fix it. He was in his late 60s possibly 70 at the time, and looked very shaky at the top. Luckily he made it down safely and fixed the washing line.

I love my Bampi he was such a character.

This was painted in acrylic paint with coloured pencil on the top, I love this combination of materials as it seems to make the picture really pop!

'Layla, 1950's style'

Here is another little drawing of 'Layla' this time, as a 1950's beauty!

Illustration Friday - Worn

'Bella was a very unconventional ballerina, the crowd would watch in awe as she seemed to float effortlessly around the stage but they just couldn't understand why she would always wear those old green worn out sneakers. Bella only felt confident enough to dance in front of an audience when she wore her trusty old sneakers, with holes in the toes and faded green laces....she danced like an angel though'

This was painted in watercolour paint with coloured pencil over the top.

Mixed Media Monday 'Paper Doll'

This week's theme for mixed media Monday is dolls. I decided to follow the path of paper dolls and ended up googling some images. I found this lovely old book of an Esther Williams paper doll and decided to make my own version of the front cover with one of my girls. I used to love paper dolls as a child and I really love the old 1950's women. They were so curvy and real. Which is a lovely breath of fresh air compared to the women of today who are 'perfect'.

I have put the picture in that I found which inspired me so you can see where I'm coming from. I created a new lady who I have name 'Lily' I think I'll be seeing more of her too! The materials used for this one were acrylic paint, coloured pencils and pen. I painted the background and stamped some bubble shapes on with some jelly molds I found in the kitchen, then I painted and coloured the ladies separately and stuck them on. I'm quite pleased with how she turned out!