Lavender Blue - Sketchbook

I have spoken before about the Irish Faerie Tale project I'm working on, Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood. Well, I'm finally going to have a chance to do a bit of work on it. Up until now it's been a week here and two weeks there but it looks like I'm going to have a month of uninterrupted work on this terrific project. Here's a recent sketchbook page that I did as a way of getting back into the mood of the story and also working out one of the many locations where the tale will unfold. There's a lot more of this kind of work to do. I'm hoping to pencil out most if not all of the illustrations so that I will be able to get painting by autumn.

Bigfoot

A wee portrait of Bigfoot - 8x10 acrylic - This is an updated version of a painting I posted last year.

I have been touching it up a bit and don't mind him as he is now but I think I might want to rework that hair just a little. He's looking just a little too Rod Stewart at the moment. What he needs are some stray leaves and other forest litter tangled in his mop to really give him that "living in the woods" look.

The Best Art Blog - Hans Bacher

Hans Bacher's blog may not be the "best" art blog out there but I'll bet it's close. Hans Bacher is an animation designer who has been working at the Disney Studio and other animation houses all over the world for the last 30 years or so.
If you are a fan of animation, book illustration, painting, drawing, design etc.... - this blog is a must.
He has loaded his blog with a ton of amazing and inspiring art, not to mention art criticism and analysis. Hans also has plenty of drawing tips and advice for improving your art, whatever field you may be interested in.
Here's a link to his blog     http://one1more2time3.wordpress.com/
Get over there and have a look . You won't be sorry.
The image above goes with a series of posts about trees in art and animation - how to paint them and why people paint them the way they do.

Arctic Characters

Two character illustrations from the Arctic Myths project I'm still working on. The colour work is all finished and now the ink drawings remain.
Here we have The Gravel Bank Ogress and the Big Bee Ogress. Big Bee is sporting a giant ulu which is an all purpose knife the Inuit use for skinning and scraping. We decided to make The Gravel Bank Ogress tall and spindly in order to give her a different look so that she stands out from the others. Also, I've illustrated her before and we wanted this one to be different. Quite often the same characters will turn up in different stories and from different regions and they should each look unique.