Bright and Cheerful

The prompt for this week at The Artist’s Playroom is lots of colour to cheer up the Northern Hemisphere’s dreadful winter.  That suits me as I am a colour junkie, well I thought I was.  However when I looked at the posts I have been putting up lately, I am not so sure, there is a heck of lot of blue creeping into my work!  Maybe it is the blue skies every day!

The above is a design that I am working on for a greeting card.  I’ve used watercolour pencils on hot pressed card.  I am not sure about the dimensions, think I need to lengthen it a bit, A work in progress!

Now for a bit of fun, because the above was quite fiddly to do, I needed to loosen up.  One of my fave ways is to use leftover card and play around with water colours, gouache and chalk pastels.  I usually mess around with the paint and then make squiggles with the pastels.  I love the way wet colours merge together with sometimes surprising results.

 The first one is only 3 in x 4 in, I thought I could see a face so drew it in with pastel.

The second one is actually A4. As I had a piece of card left over from some card that I was painting with gesso for my experiments with water soluble oil paints later in the week…

I used gouache for this one as I wanted the paint to be bold and the squiggles not so dominant.  Also, I waited for the paint to dry, whereas in the first one I used the pastel on wet paint.

Have fun everyone, and Jen I hope your flu get better quickly.

Linking with The Artist’s Playroom at Just Add Water Silly

The Dark Part 2

Bro crouched down ready to pounce on the baby silvereye before him.

“Please, don’t eat me!” The little bird squealed, “Why not?” Bro asked licking his lips.

“My Mummy will be upset; I am the only baby left!”

Bro thought of the juicy meal the mother would make.  This tiny bird would be a mouth of fluff! “Okay, where is your nest?”

“That tree by the fence.”

Bro gulped, “That old tree covered with ivy?” He shuddered, weird noises came from it.

“Man up!” he told himself, as he picked up the fledgling gently and started to make his way to to the old dark relic at the edge of the garden.

Next installment will be next Monday.

Linking to Creative Everyday

Cats and Girls

This is a first in a series of postcards I am making for the postcard swap at Artists in Blogland.  For this you do three postcards and send them to the addresses Marcia sends you and you get three back from different participants.  To register here.

This is a challenge for me as I don’t do small.  I did this in watercolour pencils with a bit of white acrylic to add texture to the background.  I added the bottom quote in Photoshop as when I had scanned it it looked empty at the bottom.  So it made me think that I will add quotes to the actual cards as well.

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is MYTH.  In my endeavor to remain focused I remembered that I had an unfinished picture of a Nordic Cat in acrylic.  I dragged him out and finished him just like that. I painted Nordic runes on his coat so that’s the link to Myth.  I really do think that I am starting to get on top of acrylics now.

The story behind this painting comes from my cat Bro.  His original name was Ambrose and I was given him as he was being maltreated in his original home.  It took him a long time to settle down and he would go off for days at a time (he had been neutered, so it wasn’t that).  Then he suddenly stopped and I referred to his excursions as his OE’s (Overseas Experience, a ritual many young NZ and Aussies take part in.  For a couple of years they roam the world)  Well, being the storyteller that I am I made up a story about a young prince cat from a isolated island called Ambrosia, who goes out on his OE and visits cats from all over the world.  This picture is of the young Nordic prince he met in Scandinavia. 

Needless to say I never finished the story and this is the only picture I competed.  You can see why I need to focus.  My problem is that I have so many ideas chasing around in my head.

Have a wonderful week everyone.

Linking to Sunday Sketches and Illustration Friday

Pigs Can Fly

There is an ad on the TV here in NZ that is very confronting.  It is against factory farming.  I’ve only seen it twice and both times it has made me cry.  It shows pigs and hens in appalling cages singing “somewhere there is a place for me..”  Then one of the piglets sprouts wings and flies off into the starry night.  At first I thought, how defeatist, you know the saying “Yeah and pigs can fly!”  Meaning, that it is very unlikely. 

 Then I started to think that by having the pig flying off, it could indicate wishes and dreams can come true.  Things can change.  Farming methods can change, society attitudes can change, I can change.  We have to be forever hopeful!

This journal page was done in watercolour, acrylic, coloured pencils and white gel pen.  I started off as a doodle then it morphed into this page.

Linking to Art Journal Everyday