Self portrait

Posted on May 31, 2021May 31, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Black ink, black pen, Collage, College, Drawing, Illustration, Ink, life study, post it notes, self portrait2 Comments

A self portrait done when I would have been drawing portraits of other students, but the server was down. Its a mixture of collaged magazine paper, watercolour paint, black ink and ink spray and post-it notes. I think I wasn’t in a good mood when I drew it. I had been doing the drawing session once a week for about seven weeks and then something went wrong and I couldn’t join in. Anyone that follows my blog will know that creating art makes me very happy, it cheers me up, (although I don’t look it in the drawing!)

Heart and Love

Posted on May 17, 2021May 18, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Blood, College, Design, Drawing, fonts, Fun, Heart, Illustration, Love, monoprint, SketchingLeave a comment

Small drawing of a heart that I drew on top of a bit of black monoprinting. I’d cut this section out of another bit to create a negative space for a portrait, I’ll post that drawing later. Done during a student led session that just finished tonight. Part of idea generation for the illustration course I’m doing.

One thing I do need to look at is fonts, it’s hard to draw them accurately and I struggle to copy them, and I didn’t have a particular font in mind, just the idea the letters should be red, I might try and make them look a bit more like blood with a fine ink pen.

The road

Posted on May 15, 2021May 15, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Abstract, Art, Drawing, Hobbit, Illustration, Road, Sketching, Tolkien2 Comments

And the road goes ever on… Black acrylic monoprint spiral. I was remembering a song or poem from the Hobbit by Tolkien. Bit abstract but fun…I haven’t slept much tonight so thought I would catch up with some #bandofsketchers pictures. This was last Sundays prompt, road

Spent all day fighting PowerPoint!

Posted on May 9, 2021May 9, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, College, Computer problems, Design, Drawing, Illustration, Learning, Need a rest, PowerPoint2 Comments

Today was hard. One of our college presentations has to have our illustrations in a PowerPoint. But my computer was playing up and instead of being able to use the tabs at the top of the page they were greyed out. So I started a new presentation, copied and pasted the work over… Then I had a break for lunch, and the new powerpoint would not work, but the old one would! So I shifted all the new work over and continued. I just finished it. I don’t think it’s well presented. PowerPoint gives you design options so each page looks good, but together it’s a bit of a mush mash.

I have got to finish off another piece of work and hand both in this week so I might be missing for a few days.

Spring collage

Posted on May 7, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, black fine liner, Color, Design, Drawing, Experiment, Flowers, holographic paper, Illustration, post it notes4 Comments

Post it notes, holographic paper and fine liner pen.

Just a drawing of the tulips, I decided to use these colours to represent the spring and added the holographic paper as shards of pottery. You can make up all sorts of ideas in a collage…

I should be typing

Posted on April 27, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, College, Design, Illustration, Learning, Microsoft, Project, Thinking, Typing, Writing2 Comments

I started with all good intentions this morning and wrote about 500 words of a 4000 word project I’ve got to do for my illustration course. But then things got in the way. We had an avalanche of carrier bags (my hubby buys them all the time). I put them by the washing machine but today they all slid down onto the floor. Cue a lot of folding and an offer to take them to the local food bank.

Then the cat decided she wanted a cuddle, she jumped up on the keyboard and knocked me out of the page I was on.

Hubby wanted to chat… Shuddup! Then Microsoft decided it wanted me to verify who I was before it would let me back into Word? What, how do you do that. I was halfway through a paragraph, had gone to have something to eat and came back to that!

Ugh!

Mice

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Author, Drawing, Fun, Illustration, Life, Mice, Mouse, Poem, Sketching, writer1 Comment

Two little drawings of mice for my friend Zoe Ainsworth-Grigg. She commissioned me to do a couple of illustrations of mice for a poem. In the poem the baby mice sing. I’m not writing it out as she holds the copyright to it. She just wanted simple line drawings and she was very happy with this.

Idea for a map?

Posted on April 2, 2021 Posted in Fine Art, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Blurry, Celtic, College, Design, Drawing, forty years old?, Illustration, Life, Map, Maze, Old art, Saxon, treasure troveLeave a comment

Blurry old photo based on celtic art. I’m trying to decide what patterns and textures I can use to create a map for college. I’m thinking of using photoshop to turn something like this into a maze / map?

Next step will be to upload it and try and change the colours and sharpness. Also to work out a route and decide if there will be celtic or saxon patterns. Will there be a treasure trove of coins or ornamental armour?

New book received.

Posted on March 30, 2021 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged archipelago, Art, Book, Cat, Huw Lewis-Jones, Illustration, imagined Islands, island ideas, LifeLeave a comment

Imagined Islands, edited by Huw Lewis-Jones looks like a lot of fun. Lots of different maps by illustrators in different, fun, styles. I think it will help me get a feel for the map project I’ve got to do for college. In the meantime my cat seems to want to help me by interpreting the word ‘archipelago’….

Cat map?

Posted on March 28, 2021 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Cat, Celtic art, Drawing, Fun, Illustration, Life, Map, mapping, Maze, saxon hoard, saxon pattern, StaffordshireLeave a comment

I drew this years ago. A celtic style cat. I did a full colour acrylic painting afterwards but I don’t have a photo of that and I think my sister has it now.

I was trying to think of a subject for an illustrated map we have to do for college. I’ve been visiting a local lake recently and there is a hedge maze there. You cannot see the shape of it from the ground and it would be interesting in mapping it out, but I don’t own a drone camera! Then I thought the map might be based around ideas of the Staffordshire Hoard found in this area a few years ago. This was coins and gold sword ornaments and other pieces of treasure. I might base my map on these Saxon patterns. Then I did my original thesis on pre Christian celtic art, and that’s where the idea of a celtic cat came from.

Decisions…. What to draw…. Hmm

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Illustration