Reading The Dead

New watercolour and gouache painting - Reading the Dead.  A woodland nymph meditates in the presence of a troll skull.

More soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Northern Wood Sprite

New painting.  This is mostly watercolour with some gouache to finish it off.

It looks like I will be going to CTN this year, so if you are in the LA area in November, please stop by.

New Watercolour - Sprite in the Open

Another one from the Nymphs and Pixies series that I have been working on lately.

Thanks again for stopping by.   More soon.

Magic Mushrooms

This time we are going back to Gwelf.  My schedule last year deprived me of much of the time I normally spend painting and investigating the Gwelf region.  This year I intend to make up for that lost time and visit Gwelf more often.

Here we have an old Raven Witch tending her mushroom circle.  She protects it and feeds it and in return it offers her escape and travel. The kind of travel that can only come from a mushroom circle or "faerie ring" which, as we all know, can be an instant portal to the nether world for any ignorant mortal foolish enough to step within.  However in this case the Raven Witch cultivates the circle and thereby controls it's magic and it's power.  She is a traveler.

Time is short and I will get back to all of this "circle magic" as soon as I can but I wanted to be sure to drop in today while I had a few free minutes and update with you all.

Thanks for stopping by and more soon.

Airborne - Step by Step

Okay.

It all starts with a drawing.  When I begin I have only a vague idea of what I want and do my best to find it and get it down.  I am improvising as I go and curious to see where it will end up.  I am not thinking in colour when I am drawing but rather in misty monochromatic tones such as Arthur Rackham might have used - nondescript sepia and paynes grey.  The colour choices come later.

I now take this drawing and with the aid of a light box trace it onto, in this case, a sheet of 140lb cold pressed watercolour paper which I have taped to a piece of Masonite - watercolour palette close to hand and ready to go.  I have already begun to lay in a few tentative washes as a way of tip toeing into the picture.  Blue for sky and shadows and yellow for trees.

At this stage I am working in watercolour and just laying in the broad washes in order to get a general feel for the picture I want to make.  I am thinking the light will be coming from the right in a late afternoon warm sunset kind of atmosphere.  I am still being very careful - no bold or gutsy displays of artistic gusto.  Often when I get to this point in a picture I rather like it and think it looks fine just as it is and I should stop.  However I know I must soldier on.

I now have the picture more or less established in watercolour and it is time to switch to gouache which is a much more robust water media.  Both watercolour and gouache are from the Winsor Newton brand and are colour matched perfectly.  Now that I have a reasonably good idea of where I want to go, gouache is going to get me there faster.  I am not yet utilizing the opaque potential of the gouache, that will come later, at the end of the process.  For now I am just putting unmixed colour on the board.

This is where I commit to the painting and continue to add gouache and really get the picture established.  The colour scheme is presenting itself.  The feeling now is that the train has left the station and it is up to me to not run it into the ditch.

Here is where I start to use the gouache in it's opaque form and begin over painting the way you might if you were using oil or acrylic - light colour over dark.  We do this by mixing white into whichever colour you want to make opaque and lay one over another.  In this way I can bring things forward and have them stand out or push them back and let them recede into the background.

The final stage is one I really enjoy.  The painting is mostly finished and I now can go in and refine details and clean up edges.  This is where gouache really shines because I can make all the little corrections and adjustments that finish off an image.  I also like to get in there with colour pencils and make little scratch marks and blur any areas that seem to tight or dark.  I may yet go back in and fiddle with it some more, but for now I think this one is finished.

While I was working on this picture I had the "My Neighbour Totoro"  art book out and occasionally leafed through it for inspiration.  I did not want my picture to look like that movie but I was hoping to tap into a bit of that spirit.

I will be more than happy to field any questions you might have.

Thanks for stopping by.  More soon.

Turtle Country

Many years ago, perhaps 15 or so, I made this drawing of a forest nymph and turtle.  It has always been a favourite of mine but for whatever reason I left it alone and waited for the right time to paint it.  But recently during a break I decided to give it a go and at the same time get back in touch with an earlier version of myself.  It was surprisingly easy to adapt to the way I used to draw and think about picture making even though the way this version turned out is probably very different to the version I would have painted back then.

Thanks for stopping by.  More soon.

Nana and Goliath

He came down out of the hills in full armour. He stomped through her garden, wrecked her front door, ruined her table cloth and even broke her favourite window. When he finally woke up he wandered off and never came back.

Thanks for stopping by.

More soon.

New Painting - Long Bow

Well, I managed to find a bit of time to actually paint this one. I was hoping for slightly better results, but then I'm always hoping for better results. Anyway - watercolour and gouache on cold press paper. 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.

Mice !

Okay - this is a little different. A few years back it was looking like we might be doing some Redwall related work - you know, the Arthurian/Robin Hood mice stories - very cool !  Anyway, we worked up some samples and got very excited about working on Redwall until the whole thing inevitably fell through. I still like these ones though and would love to have a chance to do something like this again sometime.


Cheers

Back in the Weeds

Here I've decided to take a couple of pieces from a few years ago and tweak them up a little so that I could pop them up on to my new Etsy page. These paintings were pretty monochromatic before, and I suppose they still are to some degree but I have added some more colour and made some minor adjustments to the drawing and design. These 2 pictures are small - 5 x 7 inches and are watercolour, gouache and pencil crayon on cold pressed paper. I like to think of these little characters sitting on the edge of a field, meditating over the sheep or cows that are just out of sight.

Etsy

Hi Folks.

Just a small announcement to let you know that I now have an Etsy gallery where I have a few originals for sale, like this Magic Card above.

http://www.etsy.com/people/LarryMacDougallArt

Please feel free to drop by and take a peek.

Thanks again for all your patience  :)

More soon.

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.

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 :)

Faerie Fix

I'm calling this one Faerie Fix because I have just made a few adjustments, or fixes to this little painting. It is a book illustration for Jim Tague's poem Teeney O'Feeney King of the Leprechauns.
I thought I was finished with this picture and the project completed when it was decided that we would add one more illustration to the book. Adding more art is always fine with me and since the new picture was going to involve faeries I felt like I wanted to go back to this one and make a few corrections before starting the new picture. I made some adjustments to her wings and brightened up the colour in a couple of places and gave her a bit more hair. The changes are subtle but now she looks a bit closer to what I have in mind for the faeries in the new picture and they will all look like they come from the clan. It's watercolour of course, as usual, with some gouache over painting.

The Secret History of Hobgoblins

Two Illustrations from the soon to be released book, The Secret History of Hobgoblins by Templar Press in the UK. This was an absolutely terrific project to work on - really fun. It was written by Ari Berk who also wrote The Secret History of Giants a couple of years back which I was also lucky enough to have had the opportunity to work on. In Hobgoblins we're dealing with all the little critters, good and bad who may be found in and around the home. Above we have a wee goblin spreading mold up the walls and a rather more helpful chap banging the dents out of an old plate.

Fossil

Here I'm playing with a concept I first came upon while reading The Hobbit many years ago. The idea is that Trolls will turn to stone if hit by direct sun light. That's what happened here. This poor fellow has been there for decades and a local maiden has decided to turn his back into her thinking and day dreaming place. He's covered in moss with vines and creepers making their way up his arms and torso - he'll be there forever and one day her daughter will discover this very same place for herself.

I don't get much time these days to do personal work but I did manage this one a couple of weeks ago. It may be a while before I get the chance again despite a ready cache of ideas just waiting to be painted. This one is gouache and watercolour on cold pressed paper.

Seasons Greetings all.

larry

Things that go Bump

Our main graphics computer has been acting up lately and I haven't been able to scan anything new in the last couple of weeks - very frustrating because I have just completed a personal piece I'm rather happy with and can't share. In the meantime I'll post a couple from a recent project concerning mythical characters that should be out in the spring.
I hope to have something new up shortly.

Seasons greetings everyone.