Transitions

Hi there blog watchers! Happy 2016!

It's been far too long, so I think it's about time I showed you a new piece of work. We'll blame work for that as it does really impact on the amount of time I have to do things I love doing. Still, I manage somehow and will hopefully continue to do so. But enough about that, you're here for art aren't you?

 

This new one is entitled 'transitions'. It's about change, specifically the changes we make in our lives that forever impact us. Often it's a choice and since we don't have the ability to see the future, it's a blind one; We don't know what will be on the other side of that 'portal' we choose to step through. In some cases there might not even be a way to retrace our steps and go back to how things were before, which can make that 'choice' all the more daunting, however it's also what keeps life interesting.

Things have changed oh so much in my life these past couple of years and I hope they will continue to do so. Most of these changes have been positive and have in most cases exceeded the possibilities of how I thought they would turn out. I hope that 2016 will be just as bright and bring with it even greater possibilities.

I'm quite proud of this piece. It was a good chance to really experiment with a strong sense of lighting, which I don't normally do. It was something of a challenge with how to actually do the shading and I wasted time with layers I probably didn't need to use.

One thing I struggled with, was whether or not to put in a deeper background. In the end I decided against it, because no matter what I tried I just couldn't get it to look right. Background is still something I struggle with and it will certainly be a thing I'll try to focus on overcoming this year. I've been sitting a on fantastic idea for an exhibition, but to really make it work I need to be much more competent with backgrounds, so I really can't wait to get there and start on that work specifically.

I was originally not going to put in a pattern on her top, but in the end I just couldn't resist. I love patterns and fabrics and if I didn't love fantasy and science-fiction so much, I'd probably be a textile designer. In illustration however, I can be both at the same time! I find that even the simplest pattern, (like the one above) can really bring some extra life to an image.

If you have any questions about this work or would like to obtain a print, just leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

Until next time...

Snow with friends

Hi there everybody,
sorry about the wait between posts, but I started a full time job in March and haven't had much time to do things of an illustration nature, which is a true shame. Still, with my contract ending in a week, I'll either be looking for a new job or hopefully changing to part time in my current job, either way I should soon have time for my real passion.

So today, I have once again an illustration gift for a friend. This particular friend loves penguins, (her house is full of penguin plushies). So it was pretty obvious where my direction came from in this piece. The main thing I wanted to try in this was to paint a background and I'm fairly happy with how that came out. I also decided on some very Scandinavian patterns, partly because I love geometric patterns, but also because I see it everywhere at the moment. So many people are wearing jumpers with these types of patterns. Th pattern on the scarf are snow covered leafless trees, I was impressed with how nice this simple pattern worked

I looked to colour starting with a purple, as it's my friend's favourite colour. this also worked in compliment with the oranges in the emperor penguin's colouring.

I was so happy when she decided to display it next to her television, to give it such a prime position, she must really love it.

How you enjoyed the piece, see you next time ^_^

Horsey with magic birds and a revival

Hey there people!

Posts seem to come with two and today is no exception! As per usual I have two new artworks for you today. So without further small talk I'll get straight into it!

 

So this first image was done for my traditional Chinese new year illustration. You might remember last years work for year of the snake? This year being horse, I had the option to draw a mount, which I always love doing. A bit of further research showed that one of the five Chinese elements is also associated with the year, this year being wood. There are also colours, symbols, seasons and even planets associated with the element. This gave me plenty of direction in my self-brief.

I thought this time I got through the sketch and line-work stages much quicker than usual, though I still think I could be quicker. The biggest challenge in this work was working out a good and stylised way to "texturise" the wood, which I think worked quite nicely.

Now to the story behind logo on the wind barrels. It turns out the planet Jupiter is associated with wood, so I wanted some way to include that in the art. I remembered from a previous piece of work that all the Roman gods and thus planets had a graphic symbol to represent them, and obviously what you see on the barrels is the symbol for Jupiter. Out of pure coincidence the symbol also looks like a two and a four for 2014! I love it when things like that happen.

As you might've noticed I've included detail shots, which I think I might do from now on. Often I have  details in my work that really can't be seen properly in these web quality versions.

Now onto the next work...

 Before

 

  
After

This next piece is a little different from my usual work. It's actually my take on one of my sister's creations. That's right, my sister is an artist of sorts too. She dabbles in collage and crafts, mainly sewing and knitting. She does some great work, though she won't admit it herself. I'd be plugging her website here, but she doesn't yet have one yet.

So as you've probably gathered, the top image is my sister's original and the after is my take on it. I simply decided to do this because I liked her character, but also because I wanted to try "complexifying (tm)" a quite stylistic design.  

I tried to keep as close to the original as possible, however I did tweak the colours a bit and decided for fun to add some birds, two of which are birds my sister likes (namely the fairy wren and the barn owl), the others are made up. The particularly daunting task in this image was the pattern on the skirt. I couldn't decide whether to opt for a scan of a illustration from the same book as the original or attempt to draw my own in the same style. In the end I though it might look at bit too busy full of really complex line work, so I opted to do it myself and rather pleased with the result.

Vicky was actually really proud that I used her creation, which made us both feel good!

One last thing to post, I lied. A while back I worked on a new version of my 2012 image (year of the dragon) So I though I really should update my blog with the improved version, so here it is.

Pretty much the only major change to the original is the pattern on the kimono, which was supposed to look like stylised fire works, but I don't think it really worked that well. Most of the rest are just adding more detail or tweaking shadows.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I've recently joined 'Drawcrowd,' a community site for sharing illustration and concept art with other artists. It was created by the ever generous Feng Zhu, who I ranted about before. He continually gives back to his industry in ways that are awe inspiring. So what are you waiting for? Check it out here! You can find a link to my page on Drawcrowd in the contact section of this blog.

Well that's it from me, time to get back to drawing. What's next you say? Well it involves penguins!

Thanks for reading.

Watercolour practice

Hi there,

Just as I promised, here's some work I've been doing in watercolours. It had been a while since I last used them, so I thought I'd do some quick practice pieces.

The concept for this piece started with a desire to draw a girl wearing seifuku. Playing around with some shapes in the background, it started to remind me of a shrine erected after a war. So I decided the girl could be part of an naval honour guard to keep watch over the navy's archives. I decided to give her a trident as a pole-arm. It is great weapon for guards and the connections it has with Poseidon, Greek god of the sea.

Inspired by my friend Levene's 'Animal in a day' artworks I decided to try doing concept art without a background and much less concern on a narrative. Instead, just picking a couple of words and trying to put them into one character design. I often try to put too much thought into an artwork, so this a great way to practice coming up with a concept quickly.