Year Of The Sheep

The idea of animal years is a fun one. (I'm a dragon - hooray!) I felt inspired to draw a picture for the sheep this year. Done in my usual fashion: drawn by hand first, then scanned in and coloured digitally.

Also, the exhibition three of my pictures are in at Nature In Art opened on the 17th for just under two weeks. I've been and had a look around and the selection of work by others in the group is great and pretty varied. I will soon even have a chance to be an 'artist in residence' for it, so that will be interesting. But what to work on while I'm there...

More Traditional Stuff

Having the exhibition looming got me inspired and experimenting a little. Here are a few traditional pieces, mostly pastels, which I knew would ultimately be way too 'rough' for the exhibition, but I at least hoped they might inspire me further. Please note they have been taken at non-straight on angles with my camera, and the colours have changed somewhat on the photograph.

Arctic Fox

Drew on orange card which was actually the cover of an old school book. I thought the colour might look interesting against the white (white watercolour pencil; chalk-like pencil). Unless I kept going over and over it, though, I think the white sinks in too much to the strong orange.

But just experimenting after all!

Hippos Under Water

Found a great photograph in an animal factfile folder of mine of two hippos wading at the bottom of some water. Had to do my own version of it, using charcoal and pastels.

Waterside Rat

Blend of marker colours and white pencil/chalk on card. Inspired by an illustration in a book using simple lines and a hint of colour, this piece became a bit less subtle!

Azalea

Quick pastel piece of my ol' 'TY Attic' soft toy - Azalea the rabbit. On other half of school book cover.

More to post soon...

Papier Pig, Rubbish Walrus

Did some still life drawings a few weeks back at the art group. Now whilst at university I got into the habit of drawing speedier because of the nature of animation - and in general to loosen up - so I didn't tend to spend ages studying one 'image' any more. So to go back to something like still life and be able to stick in one place for very long I didn't think I could do; especially with a sketchbook, rather than being up with an easel. Anyway, there were a few still life items dotted around the room so I could at least go off to something else if I got bored. I used up a few pages of my sketchbook because I indeed could not bring myself to work too long on any one. Of all those pages, I'm only really fairly pleased with two. It has shown me that other art mediums than pens, markers and pencils probably are better for me if I want to feel I've got somewhere with still life! Also a bigger sketchbook, or up on the easel. Maybe I should start setting up my own still life at home.

Ran out of time to finish this. A green pig originally made from being papier mached around a balloon. A first chance to use my conte with no green to be had, so I had to make do!

So I called this 'Rubbish Walrus' because the sculpture seemed to be made from waste paper and other bits. A large piece, you can see I only concentrated on a small area, loosely. Done with good ol' charcoal.

In other news, I've finally handed in my three pieces for the exhibition. It was really tough trying to decide what to hand in, and I just really hope it will be suitable enough! Will post again very soon with some 'inspired towards exhibition' pictures.