Busier than I look

I have just finished writing this post and was about to click 'Publish' but I have to make an addition. Alex was asleep next to me while I was working on this and he just woke up all disoriented and in a feeble little voice cried out 'Mum'. It's a bittersweet moment whenever he says it. He only ever says it when he's in some kind of distress, but on the other hand, it is my most favourite word of all the words he's learnt to say. He is so unbelievably gorgeously cute.

Okay so here's the original post:

Okay, I've been dubious to start a post as I'm having a major issue with my laptop crashing every time I try and do anything on the internet and I can't get an appointment with the 'geniuses' - or is that 'genii'? Well, either way they'll be neither if they can't fix the damn thing - until Wednesday. So fingers crossed that when I come to insert the images the Mac (or as I call it 'the boyfriend' hey, this contraption has been in my life a very long time! It's chunky, clunky and it's running 10.5.8) doesn't blow its mind.

Anyway, as well as spending the summer with my angel Alex, I have been very busy drawing with the sewing machine. Plus, I have finally opened an Etsy shop. Now let me be very clear that I 100% expect to sell nothing, and I'm fine with that. I think my actual aim in doing this has been to force myself to put my art into a frame rather than onto a shelf to gather dust. Obviously the subjects as birds and citrus fruits. I really like the way the leaves turned out and also the shadows below the fruits, especially under the grapefruit. Incidentally, these were also the bits I most enjoyed doing. It's typical of me to prefer the periphery over the main event. I think this is because I start off with the subject of the piece and want it to be good and so get a bit tense trying not to stuff it up but then I relax once that's over and just enjoy doing the rest. I definitely see that as 'getting to the good bit' as it were, which is daft because free-motion should all be free flowing. It's actually given me an idea that for the next piece I do I'm going to ditch the birds and the fruit and just sew leaves and veins and shadows. Don't you just love how art projects evolve like that. It reminds me of the book 'Zoom' which I'm sure I have mentioned before. If I haven't it is called Zoom and is by Istvan Banyai and it (together with my illustration tutor who introduced it to me) literally revolutionised the way I think about composition. It's awesome. Read it (or don't because there aren't any words so just look at it)!

Warbler. Black and yellow thread and applique on grey-brown linen.

Puffin. Black and variegated colour threads and applique on bleached calico.

Pink Grapefruit. Variegated threads and applique on grey linen and bleached calico.

Lemons. Black thread, applique and Promarker (yes Promarker!) on bleached calico.

In the Pines, In the Pines

We've been away on holiday for the week at Center Parcs (courtesy of Grandma, thank you, Grandma) - a week of pretending to be in another country without actually leaving the country.  I was completely in love with the 'cabin' we stayed in. Not a cabin at all but to my mind the perfect house, open plan living area, lots of glass i.e. glass walls, totally minimal i.e. babyproof! Alexander loved the expanse of floor and lack of doorways allowing him to go crazy in his walker car and to crawl all over the place. It is right in the middle of a forest so I was able to delude myself that I was back in Austria...until you get inside the 'Plaza' at which point you can delude yourself that you are somewhere tropical, although it is a bit of a shock to the system if you accidentally leave the safety of the dome in your wet swimming costume and shorts (cue: me).

Anyway, Alexander had some really good snoozes I think as the result of all that time in the 'lazy river' and I was able to take advantage of the big wall of glass and draw nature in January without getting cold.

 

I really dislike that I used green for the background but I didn't have anything else and leaving it white looked odd too

Surely the perfect home for an artist. Wall of glass!

Alexander driving his car on the patio

I really like how the colour came through the back of the page

Close Up

Colour block leaves - not finished as Alexander woke up!

Real palm, artificial sunshine

Equipment: A6 Moleskine, Faber Castell Pitt Pen 'S', Promakers 'Vanilla', 'Cool Grey 1', 'Moss' and 'Lime Green', Cheapo retractable pencil.

Tealy, Tealy Badgers

 

I sketched this about a month ago after encountering one of the Anti-Cull demonstrations in the city. The Government have, despite much petitioning and support from famous names including Brian May of Queen, introduced a badger cull. Here is my drawing of badgers. Look at them. I'm sure there are other creatures doing far more damage to this country/World than badgers that aren't getting culled for it. Just sayin' *cough*humans*cough*corporations*cough*politicians*.

Equipment: A6 Moleskine sketchbook, Cheapo Papermate pencil, Promarker in 'Marine'.

IF Tail

Pretty quickly done Illustration Friday entry for this weeks prompt 'Tail'. Made quite a mess of drawing the seat!

Little Creatures Collection

The mummy and baby birds I drew for the 'Together' illustration were a bit of a follow on from some little creatures I scribbled in the Moleskine a couple of weeks ago.  Here is the whole collection... note that the thing that looks like a spider was actually going to be an octopus but I couldn't really recall what an octopus looked like. I later realised that he needed curly legs and also all the legs should've been coming from the bottom of him with a bulbous head. Oh well I will know for next time...

Equipment: Cheapo pencil and Promarker

IF Together

Some Illustration Friday themes are easier to come up with an idea for than others. Last week's 'Totem' I couldn't deal with.  But this one was easy. Alexander has been going through this '4 month sleep regression' thing, basically carrying on like a newborn waking constantly through the night and feeding every 60-90 minutes throughout the day also. This weekend he finally seemed to be coming through the other side of it and what with the oncoming autumnal weather we just snuggled up together in bed and got loads and loads of sleep and only left home really late in the day for our stroll around the park. He also has got his first cold so the poor little thing has been super snuffly and having trouble breathing because he is so congested. So more snuggling up has been required.

While he was snoozing in his pram taking in some fresh park air I remembered this week's IF theme 'Together' and it made me think of a little baby bird reliant on its mummy bird keeping it safe and protected against the world in their little nest just like my little baby boy and I.

I have to tell you also that staring at the word 'birds' while I've been scanning and saving and selecting this pair has resulted in me listening repeatedly to 'Plateau' by Nirvana... 'nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop and an illustrated book about biiiiirrrrrrrds...'

Looks like Autumn is here!

Man, I was at the end of my tether today. Alexander hasn't been sleeping well for about 10 days now and also not managing to sleep in his pushchair which is usually how I can reliably get a little bit of a break getting him to sleep so I can sit in the park for a couple of hours. We both have an accumulation of tiredness, overtiredness! Today I was pushing him along in that pushchair and he was crying and I was using up every little bit of my energy reserves. In the end I sat on a bench and cried. And then I pushed him some more and finally, finally he conked out.

By this time I'd made it around to a part of the park I really love, in fact it is the best part, a great long avenue of trees. But I've never sat down there. Today I collapsed there on the nearest bench. I attempted to read my book but had a headache, then I noticed that all around me were fallen leaves and I noticed how lovely the browny-orange colour of them looked against the path which is black. I've been teaching Alex lately about Autumn and what will be happening to the trees (obviously not today!) and so I've been wanting to do an autumnal drawing. But over on the other side of the park it is still more summery, which sounds strange now I say it, a bit Narnia-esque. These leaves just looked so nice against their black background so, of course, I drew them. How fortuitous that Alexander howled on the sunny side of the park, and how thankful am I that I had the trusty Moleskine with me! A friend of mine who is pretty fed up at the moment was saying to me this morning that she thinks she needs to get a hobby. I am so grateful that I draw. I am sure it has saved my sanity on many an occasion!

Equipment: Pencil and Watercolour (Sennelier Artist Grade Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna and a yellow - can't remember which and W&N Student Grade Lamp Black) on Moleskine Sketchbook. I applied the paint pretty dry as it didn't seem quite right to paint something as dry as a dead leaf in a watery way. Also, I like the way the waxy Moleskine takes the watercolours when they are quite dry.

Red Ant Black Ant

I was in the park the other day and I saw a red ant approach my blanket. 'I don't want you hanging around and stinging me' I thought and I shooed him away. Then I saw a little black ant walk up to the red ant and then they went their separate ways. I'm not sure whether red ants and black ants get on. Do they associate? Do they live alongside each other in harmony? An insectologist would know the answer to this, in fact a quick Google would probably give me an answer but I preferred to do a little illustration to pose this insecty question...

Equipment: pencil, watercolours in Ivory Black and Aliz Crimson.

Hidden - Illustration Friday

This week's Illustration Friday 'hidden'

Equipment: Pencil and Promarker Lime Green in Moleskine Sketchbook.

Lush - Illustration Friday

It took me quite a while to come up with an idea for how to illustrate 'lush'. Here in the west of England the word 'lush' is so heavily used you could say it is part of the local dialect. It's used in the sense of 'really really gorgeous'. So that felt like a pretty broad scope! Trying to think of something to fit this definition, without drawing something I've already drawn and without drawing Alex who is of course the epitome of lush and in fact the lushest thing in the world but too lush for me to do justice to with my drawing ability, I thought about the fact that we are going on holiday to the seaside this month and that wonderful moment when you first see the sea. I remember when I was little and we would drive to the coast for a holiday and be waiting and waiting for that magical moment when you drive up over a hill and get a first glimpse of the sea. At which point shouting excitedly! 'mummy, I can see the sea!!!' Alex hasn't quite mastered language to that degree yet but this will be his first holiday and I look forward to one day hearing him say that.

Equipment: Pencil and watercolour in Moleskine Sketchbook.  I really like the way the composition of this turned out but I'm not so sure about the colouring in. I would've preferred the effect of using markers but it was on the back of something else in the Moleskine and they would've bled through.  Actually, I think it is the colour of the sea that I have the problem with. I should've scanned this before I coloured it as it looked quite nice just as pencil on the colour of the Moleskine paper.

Rescue - Illustration Friday

I feel a bit sorry for this little spider but this illustration was inspired by a true story so it was in fact his fate I'm afraid.  Loxie has no tendencies towards mousing or birding, she is not exactly the finely tuned assassin her species is known to be. That said, she does love a spider. She only ever catches them at night though and I often get up in the morning and find spider corpse on the lounge floor as evidence that she has been having some sport in the night.  On this particular night I was woken up by a great commotion 'holy cow, I'm being burgled' I panicked to myself.  But when I turned the light on I saw Lox sitting by the end of the bed with her (now dead) spider. She looked pleased as punch and was evidently wanting to show mummy her handiwork. I don't have any major issue with spiders, being in Australia got me over my fear of them. But I was very grateful to Lox for the good work she did and continues to do rescuing me from the possibility of them scuttling across my bed at night.

Equipment: Pencil, watercolours, Moleskine sketchbook. Trying to use watercolours last night with Alexander wriggling around on my knee was no easy task but this wasn't going to work if I used pens as I wouldn't have been able to colour Lox black without obliterating the spider. I managed to paint this in 5 minute bursts when I was able to put him down before he grizzled and needed picking back up again. Actually, he is kicking around on me now as I attempt to type this post one-handed. It's been a few months since I used watercolour in a Moleskine sketchbook too. I know lots of people complain about the waxy paper and how it takes the paint but I really like it.

Little Squirrel

I was sitting in the park a couple of days ago and Alexander had fallen asleep and was snoring away in his pram. I had the new Moleskine on me but had no idea what to draw so I just lay back and looked up at the sky. It was my second favourite type of weather - when it's really warm but also overcast, it reminds me of being in Malaysia or Goa when a storm is approaching. Anyway, all of a sudden I heard a crunching scraping sound behind me. I wondered what on earth it was. I looked up at the tree behind me and there she was, a little Squirrel trying to break through the husk of a nut. I loved the way her big fluffy tail was curled down the branch, usually they are stuck up in the air. What a lovely little thing to put on the first page of my new sketchbook I thought. So here she is. I haven't coloured her in as I only had a grey and green pen on me. To be honest, I should've coloured her with the grey as she was a grey squirrel but I really fancy to turn her into a red squirrel as I think a rusty red would look really nice with the mossy green that I used on the leaves.But actually I quite like her in white. I can't leave her and the branch and the nut white, something needs to be coloured but I'm not sure. Open to suggestions...

For the time being, I like to think she is getting ready for the approaching winter.

Old Stuff: More Animals and Birds

A few more things I have found in the old files... and on one of my favourite subjects: animals and birds! Equipment and style is pretty varied!

My cat Flori (Loxie's actual mummy!)

Stuffed owl sketched at Natural History Museum, London

Another owl sketched at Natural History Museum and coloured digitally, YES! Digitally!! I was obviously feeling brave enough to open Gimp on that day!

My 2011(?) Christmas card design. Dip pen and watercolour on Arches paper.

'There in a wood a piggywig stood'. Illustration for The Owl and The Pussycat. Watercolour on some quite cheapy rough watercolour paper.

'They danced by the light of the moon'. Illustration for The Owl and The Pussycat. Again, watercolour on cheapy watercolour paper.

Fruity! aka Illustration Friday 'Fresh'

Filling up these missed-out pages in my Pregnancy Sketchbook I had a page free opposite an illustration I had done of a bottle of Lime Original Source back in May.  At the time I had intended to paint some limes and lemons on that page but never got around to it. So, given that I haven't done an Illustration Friday for months and months and that this week's theme is 'Fresh' it seemed like a good idea to finally draw and paint lemons and limes. And, as luck would have it, I have a fruit bowl full of them!

This was done ridiculously quickly while Alexander was still asleep in his pushchair following our walk at the park. A really quick sketch in pencil with some watercolour sploshed over the top. I then had a bit of a brainwave about cropping it square. Don't know where that came from but it reminds me now of a cushion cover!

Junk Boat 'Illustration'

I'm almost done with this pregnancy sketchbook! To be honest, I can't believe I still haven't used up all the pages in it.  It's a shame I didn't do all the drawings I did during my pregnancy in this book as the illustrations I did on bits of paper were really relevant. And this brings me neatly to my idea for my next sketchbook - a little A6 (technically not quite those dimensions) Moleskine Sketchbook who is sitting on my kitchen table patiently waiting to be dropped into my bag and become my little sidekick and be filled with 'illustrations'.  Yes, illustrations as opposed to observational drawings. I suppose everything I sketch could be classed as an illustration but what I'm talking about is more of the drawings that are more from my head. Scenes, ideas, messages, pages with more thought given to the composition. 

To start me along that route I've filled two of the final pages in the pregnancy sketchbook with this little scene of a Junk Boat sailing off into tropical waters. From as young as I can remember I have been enchanted by the idea of travelling. For me, dreams of travelling have always given me the same feeling as the belief you have in magic when you are a child. The beauty of travel is that when you grow up you can really go to these places. So anyway I drew this little scene for Alexander. It isn't brilliant in terms of the shockingly bad application of my watercolours but I hope that Alexander will find it enticing when he is a little bit older and fancy to imagine himself in this little boat setting off to explore these islands and beyond.

Feeling your baby's pain...and using the red pen I'm always scared to use!

We went to get the 8 week jabs done and it was horrible. I felt so guilty taking Alexander to the surgery knowing that something horrible was going to be done to him. Then when the injections were put into his legs and he stuck his little bottom lip out and started to cry I couldn't help crying too. It was awful.

I decided to do a little illustration of this in the sketchbook (which is still by the way the pregnancy sketchbook) because I've been wanting to do a page that is personal to us again. Pigeons in the park are fine but I really like trying to document things that are relevant to this time in our lives. Also, as with most of these type of illustrations, the composition for it had just appeared in my head and I wanted to get it on paper. I love it when that happens, when a composition just pops into your head.

I really love how this has turned out. It reminds me of a screenprint. And I LOVE the red background. I knew as soon as I saw the composition in my mind that the background had to be red but I really struggled to put that 'Lipstick Red' Promarker onto the page and I even messed about looking at all my other colours wondering if I could use a different one. I am SO terrified of this red pen. It is so fierce and has the power to obliterate other colours on a page and destroy a drawing, not to mention the next two pages of a sketchbook with the bleed through! 

Unfortunately, the blue of the tears isn't showing up too well from the scanning. I don't know if I will ever work out how to make my scanner scan with clarity!

My Hiatus Pt2: 'Harbourfest'

For those that don't know Bristol, it has a lot of water running through it and a lot of boats so the city holds this Harbourfest event. I was hoping to do a couple of sketches of boats to use for some art for Alexander's wall as he seems to like looking at boats. But in fact I ended up paying more attention to the other stuff going on - like the dance stage which had some amazing dance crews and Bristol breakers and poppers. Something else I really liked was this tree in the 'Happiness Project' area. It is a tree and you get a coloured paper leaf and write on it what you are grateful for and tie it to the tree. I wrote a leaf on Alexander's behalf and wrote 'Grandma' on it because we really would be lost without her.

To sum up the day I did this little illustration. It looks like I have loads of time on my hands doesn't it?! Actually it was the kind of repeated pattern drawing that was quite easy to do one-handed while Alexander was on my lap.

I don't really like that I coloured it black. In hindsight I would've coloured it all light grey including the leaves.

Equipment: Sakura Pigma Micron, Berol Fine, Promarkers (I forget which colours)

Every Day In May: Days 24, 25, 26, 27

I haven't been sketching as regularly since May 23rd, my last post. On Friday 24th I had some pain and the midwife at the hospital told me I need to be taking it easier - I had been trying to clear some of the rubbish my neighbour has left in my garden. So I went to my Mum's for a few days and completely lost track of my EDiMs!  I have managed to do a few of the remaining items from the EDiM list now that I am back in Bristol but I'm also finding that drawing is aggravating the pain in my right shoulder blade so I can't do more than one drawing a day.  To add to that, Domino was run over today and is at the vets on a drip tonight, poor little boy, it's one thing after another with him. Hes certainly using up his 9 lives early in life!

So I basically have just picked one a day at random, the ones that took my fancy the most as I knew I wouldn't be able to do them all before May 31st. I have also done a couple of sketches for recipes which are just in pencil and need painting but I will do that at a later date and post them separately as they aren't EDiMs.  Here are the EDiMs I chose:

#24 'Something That Makes You Laugh'
The baby moves all the time, he is so active. But the other day I could see a little foot (I think) moving across me from side to side. It looked like I had a little mouse trapped under my skin!
Equipment: The trusty cheapo HB retractable pencil.

#25 'Tote Bag'
All my bags are packed for hospital and everything in the house is ready...but now I'M not ready. I'm too tired to have a baby at the moment! I've been waking up thinking 'no I don't have the energy for labour today!'
Equipment: Pen and watercolour

#26 'A Screw'
This was so poignant to my pregnancy! I have so many random screws in my kitchen drawer left over from all the IKEA furniture I've been building over the past few months - a chest of drawers, a bed, a coffee table, a sofa and a wardrobe. Seriously, this baby is going to think he's been born in an IKEA showroom!

I was struggling a bit with drawing this as my 'S' pen wasn't working properly and my back was really sore from trying to do the line work. But then I sat outside in the sunshine and had a brainwave over how to colour it inspired by a bit of mesh I pulled apart as I opened a punnet of nectarines. I was actually going to just use the mesh as a stencil and pull it off after painting but the paint made it kind of stick and so I dug out an old bottle of Diamond Glaze to stick it on properly as I liked the industrial sort of effect it gave it. I really loved doing this!
Equipment: Pitt Pens 'S' 'F' and 'M' (Basically because the S has gone scratchy for some reason)! Acrylic paint in Primary Blue with a bit of Titanium White and Buff Titanium mixed in, The red net from a punnet of nectarines, Judi-kins Diamond Glaze.

#27 'Something Sticky'
I chose this one because it was so cold the other day, for May, that I made a cup of cocoa in the middle of the afternoon! Cocoa on a May afternoon, I ask you! However, as usual I overestimated the amount of time I needed to heat it for and it all bubbled over. Oh well, at least it has forced me to finally clean the microwave!
Equipment: Triplus Fine Liners. I used the fine liners as I knew they aren't waterproof and thought that drawing on the chocolate and then getting the pen wet would reflect the fact that I had made such a mess of making the cocoa!!

I've really enjoyed this EDiM challenge and it has helped me to create a little book of sketches to document the end of my pregnancy.  It has also helped to have been posting into a Facebook group as it is so nice to get comments and to see how other people interpret the daily themes.
I am considering embarking on something for June, the 30 Days of Creativity calender but not sure. I will decide when I wake up on the 1st of June...tomorrow!

Every Day in May: Day 23 - 'Summer Joy'

I have eaten so much fruit while being pregnant so the arrival of something new coming into season is a welcome change. I bought these peaches knowing they aren't going to be the best peaches in the world - it's a cold May and they are from Spain - but they are surprisingly more tasty than I thought they would be. Peaches can be really dreadful if you accidentally get those ones that are dry and never get juicy but just go off in the bowl. These ones are white flesh rather than the yellow flesh ones that will come further into the summer. I must have enjoyed them because I bought them yesterday at around 5pm and within 24 hours have stuffed all but one of them, along with a whole mango!

I really like how this has turned out. They remind me a little bit of the Quentin Blake peach for James and the Giant Peach, not that I am in anyway comparing myself to Quentin Blake just to be clear!!!

Equipment: Pitt pen 'S', W&N watercolours in Cad Red Pale Hue, Aliz Crimson, Yellow Ochre (peaches), Indigo (shading/background)

Slipper and Flip Flops Illustration

I picked up the last couple of things for my hospital bag yesterday. And then I obviously sketched them. They were so cheap - the slippers were £3 and the flip flops were £1. A pound! A pound! And they are as comfortable as flip flops I've spent £20 on in the past! And they smell as good as mty beloved hammer. I have just about resisted the urge to eat them...!

Equipment: Pitt pen 'S', pink highlighter pen, Indigo W&N watercolour (flip flops), Aliz Crimson W&N watercolour, Uniball Signno white gel pen (slippers).