Another Faerie Doodle

Another quick faerie doodle to begin the year. I hope you don't mind.  Soon we'll be on to more serious work :)

Faerie Doodles

A couple of quick Faerie doodles to end the year. I hope everyone has a fabulous New Year and a great weekend.


Peace

Pyk Cottage

Here's another one that goes back a few years that I still quite like. I managed to paint this with  just two colours - my favourite two colours -  raw umber and prussian blue.  I love this colour combination and use it all the time, although I usually augment it with other colours. This was a private commission and the idea here was that this tree house is a bed and breakfast and out in front we have a traveler who may or may not decide to sleep over. At this time I was thinking that I would like to do a travelers guide to the world of Faerie. The best places to stay, like this one. Where to go for the best food. Places to avoid and places that may be haunted. I never did get that idea off the ground but even now as I right about it I think it's something I'd still like to do. Anyway -

I'll have something new for you shortly, but in the mean time I leave you with Pyk Cottage.


Cheers

Arctic Giantess

Here's a spot from a recent round of Arctic Myths illustrations. As you can see, she is very big and is protecting the hunter whom she has her eye on for a potential husband. I'm not sure just exactly how this story ends but there are certainly some interesting implications there. The pressure will definitely be on the hunter to be strong and brave. The Giantess has the traditional chin tattoos and is wearing bear and caribou skins. The final step in completing this picture was to add a couple of circling birds. I don't have that version handy so I'm posting this one.

Best possible wishes going out to everyone for this holiday season.

Cheers

Larry

Pixie

This is an old one - really old actually - but I still like it quite a bit. It has that misty, murky atmosphere that I'm usually trying to get .  I sold it years ago at a convention. This is one of the few I'd like to get back if I could. I have no idea where this piece is now but I hope she's happy.

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

Sketchbook - Giants - Again

Some more fun doodling.  Another page of giants, at least I think they're giants, they might be dwarfs. Anyway, they felt like giants when I was drawing them.

More soon.

Sketchbook - Giants

A sketch page - a warm up page really - after a couple of weeks of being flaked out with bronchitis I wanted to see if I could get back into the groove of drawing. I've been doing a little drawing lately but not much and certainly no painting - so today, a page of giants, just for fun.

Petar Meseldzija

I encourage you to follow this link and check out this artist  .http://petarmeseldzijaart.freehostia.com/

While at Illuxcon over this past weekend I had the great good pleasure of meeting Petar Meseldzija, an amazing artist and illustrator. I  was also lucky enough to get a look at a couple of his large, original oil paintings - wow !

Be sure to look at the sketchbook section of his website and be prepared to have your mind blown.
This guy really rocks !

Off to Illuxcon

http://www.illuxcon.com/

Check this link and see what Illuxcon is all about. I will be there this weekend and expect to have quite an interesting time.

In the mean time I will leave you with this warm up drawing from a little while back, done as part of my usual morning warm up routine.

More soon  :)

Doodles

Some recent sketchbook activity - scroodles.

My apologies for the lack of activity in the past while. I will be attending Illuxcon ( Illustration Exchange Conference ) next week and what little spare time I have these days has been dedicated to preparing for the show. There are prints to print, portfolios to organize and original art to prep - not fun but necessary work. I hope to get back on to some kind of semi regular posting schedule again shortly.

More soon  :)

Rusty

This piece is going back a few years. I came across it the other day while searching through some old files. I don't really do this kind of aggressive imagery much anymore but I still kind of like this one. The old metal and rusty armoured surfaces were quite fun to render. I sold him shortly after I painted him and then forgot all about him until just the other day - so I thought I would share him here.

Hill Giant

A new painting - watercolour, gouache and pencil crayon on hot press paper - 15 x 20, which is a bit larger than I normally work but I wanted to push this one a little. The scan didn't quite capture it. The piece is actually a bit darker, but all in all it's pretty close - thanks Patricia :)

Recent Sketchbook - Woodland Elf

Some recent sketchbook activity. I like to start my work day, when possible, with some warm-up drawing and this elf picture is one of those. I don't normally finish them to this degree but somewhere along the line this one went from exercise to self expression - in other words I started to have fun with it. My scribbled warm-up became something I wanted to post here. Normally they end up in the recycle bin - not because I'm cavalier with my drawings but because in most cases they are loose scrawlings that serve no other purpose beyond a simple morning limber up.
More soon  :)

Recent Sketchbook

Yes, it's been a little quiet around here lately. I'm just coming out of a sort of creative limbo. After I completed all the illustration roughs for the Lavender Blue project it was my intention to jump right into a couple of personal pieces I want to have ready for an illustration conference coming up in November. The plan was a simple one and of course ran off the rails almost immediately. Nothing I tried seemed to work so I took a break and went back to the sketchbook to try and sort things out and get some ideas going that I was actually excited about and keen to paint. Luckily this approach paid off and I now have several ideas I really like. Posted above are a couple of the sketch pages that helped get me back on track. With any luck I will be showing the finals here shortly.