Recent Graphite

A few more Faeries that will be added to the final version of the Lavender Blue cover. Thomas Haller Buchanan, our intrepid designer and art director will be putting it all together with his golden age inspired expertise. The final composition will be in his hands. I'm sending the work over to him and he is assembling it. We've decided that we want the cover to have a sketchy, pencilly hand drawn kind of look to it. Now that I've sent everything over to Thom I'll be sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting to see how he puts it all together.

November is really closing in now. The wind is out of the north and the trees are naked silhouettes against the grey evening sky. You better throw another log on the fire and fish that old, woolly sweater out of the cedar chest, it's going to be a cold one.

Cheers and peace be with you.

Lavender - Back Cover

Here we have the back cover cover image for the new cover concept we discussed in the previous post.  The idea is to keep it somewhat sketchy so that it will relate to the pencil drawings that are going to be surrounding it. However I think I rendered it out a bit more that I meant to. It was supposed to be a bit sketchier around the edges but the watercolour was going down so nicely on the hot press paper that I just couldn't stop myself. Here again I'm doing the limited palette approach I like so much - just a couple of colours - raw umber, paynes grey, prussian blue and ultra-marine blue - just a wee bit of burnt umber on his beard. Also - I thought it might be fun to revisit the Leprechaun house but show it from the other side.

Anyway - Happy Halloween and Peace be with you.

Lavender - New Cover Concept.

We're doing a rethink on our cover concept  for The Lavender Blue project. Now that we have Thomas Haller Buchanan on board as art director/designer there is a lot more room to explore and experiment with really cool ideas. This is one of Thomas' rough concepts for the cover. He has taken a pile of my drawings and mashed them together into this beautiful design. Nothing is final of course. We're just thinking out loud. The main images on the front and back will be painted.

Peace be with you.

More Graphite

A bit more pencil work concerning directly or indirectly the Lavender book. Lavender of course being the Irish Faerie Tale Project I have been working on for the last eighteen months. Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood to be precise.

Cheers everyone and peace be with you.

Pencil Faeries - Lavender

Some recent pencil work for the Irish Faerie Tale I am presently illustrating entitled Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee wood.

Lavender - Image 9

Lavender finally gets a little rest in the haunted forest. The wood spirits are watching over her.  This is another illustration for the Irish Faerie Tale I'm currently working on entitled Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood.

The Haunted Forest - Final

Lavender is entering the dark and dangerous woods. This is another illustration for the Irish Faerie Tale I'm currently illustrating entitled Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood. From here on in Lavender is going to have to be very brave.

Cheers and Peace be with you.

The Haunted Forest - Rough

Even with two thirds of the final illustrations completed we are still working and reworking the picture concepts for our Irish Faerie Tale - Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood. In this case of  we have decided to delete an earlier illustration in favour of this new idea where Lavender is seen bravely entering the Haunted Forest. We want to show these supernatural woods as big and scary and Lavender as small and fragile, yet determined to press forward. Work continues.

Cheers

New Lavender Image

Here is a new illustration for the Irish Faerie Tale project I'm currently working on entitled Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood. This is the point in the story, near the beginning, where things are just starting to get interesting. Lavender is encountering what appears to be a unicorn - what she thinks is a unicorn -  in a moment she will find out what it really is. The story kicks into second gear, right about here - poor Lavender.

More soon.

Lavender Blue - Leprechaun Tree House

This new one is for the Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood faerie tale book I've been working on. Here Lavender pauses in front of the Leprechaun's tree house before she knocks on the door. At this point in the story she has already been through a lot and is justifiably cautious. We don't yet know whether the Leprechaun is a friend or an enemy and since this is a faerie tale, caution is definitely advisable.

This picture is watercolour with gouache and pencil crayon.

Lavender Sketchbook - A few More Faeries

A bit more drawing for the Lavender Blue book cover. My usual practice when working out a design for a cover is to draw many of the elements separately on loose paper and then trace them into place on a piece of translucent layout paper or with a light box. I do this because it allows me to draw freely and assemble without tightening up in order to make everything fit properly. Also, assembling in this way brings a slightly random aspect into your composition as items drawn separately are combined and made to work together. I first started doing this many years ago in animation school where all your drawing is done on a light table. It was such a great way to compose a layout that I never really found a better way to put a picture together. This process will not work for everyone but I find it quite helpful.

Lavender Sketchbook 2

Here we have a few more faeries and the rough for the cover of the Lavender book. In the cover rough we see Lavender alone in the woods with a whirlwind of faeries swirling up around her and down below on the right hand side a couple of goblins are lurking.

Lavender Sketchbook - Faeries

Some recent pencil work concerning the Faerie Tale I've been working on entitled Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood.  We originally considered using one of the interior illustrations to serve also as the cover, but we have since rethought that idea and have changed our minds. I'm glad we did because this gives me a chance to make a picture that will work exclusively as a cover and be a much stronger image and will be much more successful at conveying the mood and spirit of the book. At the moment I'm simply drawing characters and searching for the figures I want to be in the picture. There will of course be Lavender and there will also be faeries and quite naturally, goblins.

Lavender 3

This is the third completed illustration for the Irish Faerie Tale book I'm currently working on entitled Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood. This is actually image number 10 and appears about mid way through the story. Like a film director I tend to create my scenes out of order. However, in my case I don't have a good reason for working this other than I feel like it. Here we have poor Lavender now entering the sticky part of the story and you could say that she is having an "adventure". Although I would imagine that it feels to her much more like a nightmare. The nasty creature that is confronting her at the moment is a shape shifting Pookah. He is not very smart and was not gifted with a great deal of imagination but what little intelligence he does have is now bent completely toward Lavender and her destruction. Thank goodness Lavender was born with superior faculties and the ability to use them. That is all I'm authorized to reveal at the present time. The story continues on from here. Please stay tuned.

More soon.

Lavender 2

This is the second finished illustration for the Irish Faerie Tale project I'm currently working on entitled Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood. This will be the third image in the book and shows a Faerie approaching Lavender's home in the middle of the night to secretly deliver a magical object that will propel Lavender on her journey. This will of course not be known to her when she wakes up in the morning but that is the way it is with Faerie adventures. By the time you begin to realize that something is amiss you are well down the rabbit hole and hip deep into your journey, or cataclysm, take your pick.

Lavender - First Illustration

A few months ago I started to post some of the illustration roughs I had been doing for an Irish Faerie Tale project I'm working on called Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood (we're thinking about shortening the title). Since then conflicting deadlines and other circumstances have been competing to keep me away from finishing the final illustrations for Lavender, until now.

This image is the first picture in the book. Here we have Lavender in the garden clipping flowers, blissfully unaware of the catastrophic events awaiting her in the Faerie Realm just a few short pages away.

This picture is all watercolour with some colour pencil work over top.

Lavender Faeries Re-post

Pardon me folks. I've decided to re-post the Lavender Faeries because I noticed that the first scans I put up yesterday were looking rather washed out. So here they are again, looking hopefully, a little better. I also did a couple of very sly tweaks that I'm sure no one but me will notice.

These are the first finished watercolours for the Lavender Blue - Irish Faerie Tale project I'm working on.  Thanks go to Thom for posting some very generous comments yesterday.

More soon.    

Cheers