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.

Lavender Blue - Illustration Roughs

A couple more rough layouts from the story book I'm working on right now called Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood.  These 2 images come at the beginning of the story - in the first one Lavender is visiting her friend Rose who is very ill and quite possibly dying. In the second image we have Lavender with her teacher, getting some scholarly information concerning magical items.
These are of course rough layouts and will be transferred to watercolour paper where they will be painted and hopefully improved upon. It is my usual course to leave much of the detail and character of the image to come when actually painting. It has been my experience that going too far with the rough will take all the joy and spontaneity out of creating, which is why I can't wait to start painting these - but wait I must - other irons in the fire and all that  :)

Lavender Blue - Layouts 5

Here we have another illustration layout from the Irish Faerie Tale I am currently working on. This image comes near the end of the story. Lavender is in big trouble at this point and has been rescued by the Faeries and spirited away to a stone circle at the top of a dark and lonely hill. This image, like the others, will be transferred to watercolour paper and painted in the traditional way following my usual method of watercolour, gouache and coloured pencil.

Lavender Blue - Layouts 4

Another illustration layout form the Irish Faerie Tale I'm currently working on. This scene comes at the beginning of the story and really kicks things off. The Faerie visits Lavender in the middle of the night and delivers a magical object which will send her on her way into the mysterious Faerie Realm and perilous adventure - fun !

Lavender Blue - Layouts 3

Another illustration layout for the Lavender Blue story. I really can't wait to paint this one. This is where the Leprechaun lives - of course  :)

Publish Post

Lavender Blue Layouts - 2

A couple more of the Illustration Layouts for the Irish Faerie Tale I'm working on, Lavender Blue.
Here we have the Water Pixie at the top anf the Pookah underneath.  Neither of these characters are going to be good news for Lavender.
These ones, like the previous post, will be traced on to watercolour paper for the final illustration.

Lavender Blue - Layout 1

A couple of final layouts for the Lavender Blue Faerie Tale I'm working on. These will be traced straight on to the watercolour paper that I will be doing the final illustration on. The layouts were done in coloured pencil so that I could quickly jot done the colour ideas I was getting while drawing and also because the soft prisma colour pencils glide so pleasingly over the slightly toothy sketch book paper. The only problem with these  pencils is that you can't really erase them. I tend to use them like watercolour - starting with the light tones and putting the darks down last. I don't usually put a lot of detail into these layouts because I like to save as much creative energy as possible for the painting. The problem now is having to wait the weeks or months it will take before I can finally paint them and spend that pent up energy.

The first picture comes about half way through the story where Lavender encounters what she thinks is a unicorn but which in fact turns out to be a dangerous, shape shifting pookah, fully intent on harming her. The second picture is actually the first illustration in the story where we see Lavender cutting roses in her garden, blissfully unaware of the dangerous adventure into the faerie realm she is about to take.

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.