Playing around with water colour

This is just a quick sketch that I painted in water colour. Then I used some of my pens to add some detail. Just thought I'd post is as it was a bit different than my acrylic. I feel so keen to create at the moment but it's like I have a bit of a block, perhaps Illustration Friday will give me another kick start for the weekend?

I've also been working on some pendants I shall take a photo of them this weekend so I can show you what I've been doing......so much to do so little time, I wish I didn't need to sleep so I could sit up and work on my art while everyone is in bed and it's nice and quiet!!

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.

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.

Illustration Friday - Drifting

Miss Lila the lady bird loved nothing more on a sunny afternoon than to hop into her leaf boat and drift down the stream with her picnic and a good book!

Illustration Friday - Crave

Well this week, I felt a bit stuck about what to do with the topic, not because I didn't like it but because I was just really tired. I'm seriously lacking sleep so probably looked a little like this picture when I painted it. This poor woman is craving sleep of course just look at the shadows under her eyes, they are quite like my own. Sometimes it's a little hard to come by especially when you have a sick two year old. I'm not entirely happy with it as it's not like what I would normally do but I thought I'd submit it anyway as it's the best I can come up with this week. It was a good exercise for me though as I've been using acrylics a lot lately so it was nice to have a bit of a change with the watercolour. The more I look at it the more I like it.....I think....ah well I'm off to collapse!!!

Illustration Friday - Cracked

This week the theme is 'Cracked'. I had two ideas come to mind for my entry and decided upon this little one. I used my more expensive water colour paper for this one and have decided from now on I'm going to just buy the nice stuff. The paint just seems to go on better when I use the more expensive paper and the end product to me looks so much more polished. I really like how the paint looks on this paper, the skin just looks so much better than on the cheaper stuff. I also refrained from using the black out line pen to finish this off as I've bought a very fine brush and I thought I'd see how it looked without the pen. I think it looks a lot softer and I prefer it just with the paint. Perhaps this is how I'm going to work from now on it's funny I never thought I wouldn't want to use the pen as it didn't seem finished unless I'd out lined it in the past but with the brush I think that's enough. It's also the first time I have written/painted the text on and I quite like it.

Illustration Friday - Parade

Well I actually did it, I wasn't sure I'd get to do an entry this week as I've had the flu really badly so have been sitting here feeling very sorry for myself. But I managed to sketch out an idea before the fever really set in and so because I liked it so much I made sure I finished it. It probably could have been a bit tidier but I'm quite pleased with it. The prompt for Illustration Friday this week was 'Parade' and ants came to mind as you often see them marching in a very well organised line. I thought it would be nice to make them kind of like a carnival or marching band. Even though I was sick I quite enjoyed this theme and was glad I could finish it.

Rhys' birthday invite

Well my little baby is turning 6 in a few weeks so I decided to make up an invite for his party. My lovely talented step-father Tony made me my very own light box the other day and gave it to me as a suprise. I was very taken aback and love it! So I used my new toy to create this image. I drew the outline of Rhys' face onto some watercolour paper and put his head on Yoda's body as he quite like's Star Wars like most 6 year old children. I'm in the process of fiddling around with the style of the wording on the computer and perhaps putting some sort of back ground on the picture too. I'm not so tech savvy at the moment so it's still a work in progress but I thought I'd post this picture anyway.

Illustration Friday 'Impossibility'

Gilbert never believed in Fairies, even when he was a small child. He used to say that it was a complete impossibility that anything that magical could exist. That was until Ruby started whispering sweet nothings in his ear! He is now an old man but a believer!

Little Witch

Another example of playing around with my characters.

I had this image in my head the other day, I don't know where it came from but I had to get it down on paper in the end!

Ruby's 1st Birthday Card

Well this week I managed to make 3 cards! I think that's a record for me, each one has been a great exercise though as they are all different kinds of celebrations. I'm really glad that I've started making cards again as I think they are a great gift to give somone. Today is my niece Ruby's 1st birthday. She is a very special little girl. I was at her birth a year ago today and it's probably the most amazing thing I've ever seen, (and yes a little bit scary too) I feel honoured to have witnessed her come into the world and she is turning into a beautiful and cheeky little munchkin. This card I made is painted in water colour paints and outlined in black pen. I really love this little character.

Mam's birthday card!

This is the birthday card I made for my mum. Her favourite flower is an iris. I painted this on my very special water colour paper and outlined it black ink.

Colquhoun the Baboon/Illustration Friday

Well this week I managed to finish illustrating the poem 'Colquhoun the Baboon'. It's a fun little poem written by Melinda Smith and you can read it here: http://melindasmith.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/colquhoun-the-baboon/

I was able to kill two birds with one stone this week and I also used part of the illustration for the poem as my attempt at this weeks 'Illustration Friday' which was 'Poise'. After sketching the first page of the poem I realised that Colquhoun the baboon was looking full of poise as he sat in his couch on the phone to his friend.

Firemen

This is another project I'm working on of my own and I'm really happy with how this turned out. I used watercolours and went over some parts with acrylic ink which I think makes it really pop out. I really like the acrylic inks.

Illustration Friday 'Subtract'

This week's theme is 'Subtract' which I must admit didn't fill me with creativity when I first thought about it but I decided to give it a go (which, of course, is the whole point of Illustration Friday!). I'm really glad I did as I feel like I came up with something fresh and new, for me. I decided to 'subtract' my pen/line work from this and resist the urge to outline it in ink as I normally would. That seems to be what I lean towards doing lately. It was hard work not outlining it as I was dying to do it but I'm really glad I didn't now. I painted this in water colour and also acrylic inks. I discovered a new art store just down the road from me and was really happy to see that they have heaps down there, I will probably be a regular customer of theirs from now on!!!

Happy Birthday Tony

Well tomorrow it is my step father Tony's birthday. I decided to make him a card this year as I'm really enjoying being creative and used to make birthday cards all the time. Tony is a wonderful Grandfather to my two boys and they adore him. They both, especially Riley, want to be like him and fix things as he's very handy. Riley often gets his little tool box out and pretends to be Tony. So far he's managed to put a massive hole in our fly screen whilst pretending to be Tony and put lots of dents in things. Bless him!

So here is my card to Tony. I hope he likes it when he comes to tea tomorrow.

'Legendary' Illustration Friday

This week's Illustration Friday theme was 'Legendary'. My husband suggested John Lennon and I agreed straight away. I've always loved John Lennon and The Beatles but he is legendary for so many other things, so this is my little tribute to him.
I painted it in water colours and used ink on top. I managed to control myself and only out line most things as I think it didn't needed too much ink.

Mermaid, Illustration Friday

The theme for Illustration Friday this week was 'Intricate'. I finally got round to doing the mermaid picture in water colour and ink. I felt that I wanted her tail and her hair quite detailed. I think I prefer to paint in acrylic as it is much brighter and more vibrant. But I still like how this turned out.

I didn't get to do much art this week as we have been away camping which I'm still recovering from it's hard work camping with kids but we had fun. I now have lots to do and heaps of things to work on which I'm going to get stuck into as much as possible. (As long as Riley lets me)

Water colour

My next attempt I used the same pose but changed the colours and used water colours with an outline to finish.