Illustration Friday 'Transportation'

Illustration Friday is 'Transportation' this week.
I'm afraid mine is a rerun , but I thought it was quite fitting for the theme, the transportation of pollen by Mr. Busy Bee.

Illustration Friday "Dessert"

Yippee, banana split for tea! His favorite dessert.

I'm still trying to develop a style, and work on backgrounds which I find really difficult. So this week the lemur was done in watercolour and then put into photoshop for the background.
I'm not sure if the two work together, what do you think?

A dangerous entanglement

The topic for Illustration Friday this week is 'Entangled'
Well Mr. Snaffles is beginning to regret becoming entangled with this little cutie pie.
He just hopes she doesn't turn out to be a bunny boiler!!

Little green jug don't I love thee!

I chipped my favorite little cream jug last week.
I can be so clumsy it's excruciating.You know those couple of seconds after an accident when you almost feel you could rewind and do it right instead of wrong and then reality hits there's no undoing the stupidity...excruciating.
I'm so fond of my little jug, I can't bare to throw it out .I bought it in a charity shop about six years ago, so it's any ones guess how old it is.
So this weekend I did a painting of it in watercolour just to immortalise it, and you know what, I think I'll be doing more work involving it. It has such a satisfying shape and delicate colour, no wonder I love it.

Delphiniums

I have the most gorgeous blue delphiniums in the garden at the moment.
They have a beautiful purple sheen here and there, that makes them almost luminous.
I just had to get out my watercolours and give it go.
This approx. 30cm x 40cm

Primula vulgaris

The first painting in my handmade sketchbook.
It's not great but it's a start.
I decided to use the sketchbook for watercolours of my garden from life rather than from my photographs.
Painting from life really is a whole different ball game and I'm way out of practice.
I think it is much harder than using a photograph where all the colours have been decided.
Sitting in front of my primroses it was up to me to discern their delicate hues and tones.
Obviously I'm not very discerning!
My primroses aren't prim at all,they're most definitely of the vulgaris breed, overblown and blowzy :)

Sun, sea 'n surf

This is my 'Homage' to surfers who keep the dream alive.
Particularly Tyler Warren who's art I'm also paying 'Homage' to.
I haven't made it to the water yet, but I have found the board I want!
Shopping is nearly as therapeutic as surfing, only joking, it's way better...
No really I am just messing...honestly
Anyway the board is a longboard, but not too long, it's eight ft.somethingorother.
A manageable length and an easy ride apparently and easy to paddle, easy to pop up on...
All round easy, that sounds perfect to me, oh and it's a soft yellow with a big flower motif.
Yep, that's the board for me, pretty perfect!

Handmade watercolour sketchbook

I made a watercolour sketchbook today.
Thanks to Robyn over at have dogs,will travel
Who shared her own handmade sketchbook and the tutorial
on how to make it.
Which led me to Nina Johansson's own sketchbooks.
They're brilliant, do have a look.
I love the way she uses old leather bound books to bind her own sketchbooks.

Happy Valentine's Day

She was amazed and thrilled,
She never thought he would choose her to be his valentine.
Illustration Friday's topic this week is Choose.

Decided to try it again, work in progress!

The Missing Blanket

Illustration Fridays topic is Blanket.
I'm submitting this watercolour of a little girl who's not a happy camper.
Her mom had the audacity to put her comfort blanket in the washing machine.
Disaster, it's not dry yet!
I totally sympathise, how on earth is she expected to have a snooze now, don't they know that her blanket is an integral part of sleeping?!

Remarkable Birds

Takahe, an endangered flightless bird found only in New Zealand.


Kagu, Flightless bird with an extraordinary voice, can sound like a cross between a rooster and a puppy!


Black-winged Stilt, have the longest legs relative to their body-length of all the worlds birds.
So there, I wasn't exaggerating!

Just a few sketches I did in ink and watercolour from a beautiful bird book,
Collins Remarkable Birds by Stephen Moss, that a friend gave me.
Thank you J. xxxx

Tippytoes the intrepid hunter!

Tippytoes loves her bit of string, if I tie something to the end of it she looses interest rapidly!
It's sort of like kids playing with the box the toy came in, kind of :)

Illustration Friday 'The Blues'

I don't know what his problem is, but he looks mighty blue to me.
Watercolour of some dude in a magazine.

Saunder's Water Ford scrumptious Watercolour Paper.

A few posts ago I was waffling on about expensive watercolour paper.
Well it turns out I was totally ripped off, I found the same paper for 7.95 euros a sheet, that's 5 euros cheaper!
No wonder I was shocked at the price.
So naturally I snapped up, what now seemed like a bargain, all the scrumptious paper they had in the shop and spent a small fortune!!
But you know the mind is a funny thing, well mine is anyway!
Having plenty of paper has given me a great sense of freedom, I'm not feeling so precious about the paper.
In fact the watercolour above is twice the size of my previous one and is done on the scrumptious paper, Saunder's Water Ford series, rough surface, 300lb.

Salted Anemones

I liked the composition of these anemones when I did them in pastel, so I went on to do them in watercolour.
The background has a lovely mottled effect, that gives it a nice depth.
This was a tip I picked up over the weekend browsing through the art books in town.
You simply sprinkle salt over the watercolour as it dries, just before it looses it's shine.
The salt absorbs the colour, leaving tiny crystalline shapes,like miniature snowflakes.
It's not hugely obvious in my painting 'cause I put another layer of colour over the salted one.
One thing I'd say is if you sprinkle the salt too soon it takes ages to dry out and if you get impatient, the wet salt can smudge as you try to remove it.
I learned the hard way!!

Wedding Illustration Friday

Being the best man, Pete wore his favorite penguin suit and had his hair done specially for the wedding.

I was inspired by this Dude

The joy of masking fluid.

Sorry to be so obsessive.
Yet another watercolour of Anemones.
I went to the trouble of using masking fluid around the edges of the flowers, so I could put in a nice simple wash of a background.
I also masked the center of the flowers to keep the delicacy of the stamens.
It was worth the effort, usually I'm too lazy to mask and then when I do I get impatient and end up tearing the paper trying to remove it before everything is dry enough.
But today I took my time and I'm rather pleased with myself:)

New toys.

These are my previous post's Anemones reworked.
I went shopping yesterday and bought a tin of twelve Derwent Inktense water soluble pencils
Of course, I was actually shopping for new paint brushes, but you know how it is...
So as I wasn't 100% happy with the Anemones as they were, I decided to try out my new toys on them.
They're great, I love them, the colours are as they say Intense and vibrant.
And so easy to use.
I am really happy with the result, they've certainly given a new look to the Anemones and I like my background too.
Yahoo!

Momentum

I did this watercolour yesterday sitting out in the garden.
It was a beautiful sunny day and I was in my element until about an hour later I suddenly realised I was frozen, the sun had disappeared and all the colours and shadows had shifted with the light.
So I called it a day and packed up.