IF Tail

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

Mr Dangly Legpeg Lion aka IF 'Energy'

Alexander absolutely loves this little lion. It is a finger puppet I bought at Longleat Safari Park when we went there when he was only a few weeks old.  I think what he must like about it is that its legs are made of string and that they are dangly because his favourite game is when I (or Grandma) hold the lion above his face while he is on his back and either jump the lion up and down or just generally shake it frantically! He gets so excited and flaps his arms and legs like he's doing snow angels. And if I shake the lion next to Alexander's ears, it makes him really giggle as he apparently has pretty ticklish ears. The other morning we were playing with the lion and I put on 'Iron, Lion Zion' and Alexander just got so excited he flapped like he was going to take off.  This lion-induced excitement really made me want to draw a lion... and then guess what happened...???...the thing I always dread...my drink leaked in my bag and soaked my Moleskine!!! Fortunately it was only fizzy water but it was very wet and very buckled so I hung it on the radiator and then squashed it under a copper-bottomed saucepan. It was finally passable for being back in action today and seeing that the IF theme for this week is 'Energy' I scribbled down a sketch of Mr Dangly Legpeg Lion. Here he is...

Equipment: Pencil 2B and Moleskine

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...'

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.

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!

IF 'Farewell' Continuous Line

Didn't think I'd get around to doing an illustration for Illustration Friday this week but I was practising portraits (again) and did one as a continuous line drawing and thought it would be nice to carry it on into an illustration. I started drawing this lady and thought she looked like she was leaving behind one adventure and travelling on to a new one.  On reflection I see I haven't made the seat on the Amtrak train anywhere near as wide as they really are...I must've been getting confused with our British trains! :)

I can't believe I embarked on drawing copious amount of windows on the buildings after that tower block drawing! These were more fun to draw though as they were drawn continuously so at least it was easy to keep them in line. Also, I don't like the person pulling the suitcase on the platform. It's a little bit distracting I think. I really enjoyed doing this especially the lady's hair. She is a bit messy around the jaw line as at that stage I was going to work up a bit of shadow but then gave up as I wanted to go and do the hair. This was done with just a Pitt pen. I did think about putting in a spot colour but not sure what part would be best to use it on.

IF Train (of Cats): A Shady Looking Bunch!

I haven't done an Illustration Friday drawing for a while as I've been too fixated on this sketching people and observational drawing business. But when I saw the theme for this week 'train' it tied-in with something I saw last week that made me really laugh but I hadn't been been quick enough to take a photo on my phone.  I was reading in the garden and I looked up and saw three of the neighbourhood cats - including Loxie - standing on the wall. It reminded me of those elephant trains. They were all looking at me, and on the wall they looked so much like they were looking for mischief.

For this illustration I've had to draw them all from memory and stupidly although I'd meant to draw this across two pages of my landscape sketchbook, I forgot and drew on a page that had something opposite. Hence only 2.5 cats!

In the train are: Front 'The Cloud' a bit of nuisance of a cat as I keep finding him in my house whenever I leave the back door open, and he's quite a scary looking thing with that big old flat face. In the middle is Loxie. And at the back is 'Fat Alf'. He lives in the flat upstairs and of all the cats in the neighbourhood, of which there are a crazy amount, he is one Lox has made friends with. I share a garden with the flat upstairs so I guess she's had to get used to sharing her patch!

Egg at Easter

Illustration Friday theme for IF 29/03/13 - 'Egg'.

I had actually done a nice sketch of a glass full of chocolate eggs while I was waiting for my appointment at the hairdressers on Friday morning before I had seen the new weeks IF theme and I was going to work that into something more by adding a little chick. But when I started trying to draw the chick and looking at them on Google images, I couldn't get past how sad it is that so many millions of these cute little fellows will be born into a life of discomfort. Hence the composition of this little one, waiting to hatch and begin his life in the world.

Swim

Here is what I have submitted for IF's theme for w/c Friday 22nd March - 'Swim'.  Today is the day I get a scanner so this should be the last of my dodgy blurry camera uploads! I've been thinking about doing a 'swimming' sketch for ages now as swimming has been really important to me since the start of 2013. It has helped me so much with feeling healthy in my pregnancy, it is also the time when I dream up ideas for what to draw, and it has boosted my confidence so much that something I thought I was really no good at I actually can do. There are also some really nice people who also go to the pool regularly who I am always happy to bump into.

This was just a preliminary sketch to try and get the composition but then I quite liked her and of course couldn't help colouring her in.  Also, she was obviously going to be a self-portrait of me but her face is definitely not mine.  I had given her a quick little sketched in face in pencil which I had planned to change later. I was tired out from swimming and cleaning the flat and didn't have the energy or concentration levels to focus on my face in a mirror. But the face I drew seemed sweet and reminded me of a friend and I didn't have the heart to erase her. 

I have been going swimming 2/3 times a week since the start of the year and I think that the free swimming for pregnant women courtesy of the NHS is just brilliant and I really hope the Government don't ever scrap it given the fact that they are chipping away at the NHS!  I spent my whole life thinking I was a terrible swimmer because school swimming lessons made me feel like I was useless. I was convinced I couldn't swim more than a length of a pool.  But I started swimming due to the free swimming and because I have some trouble with my hip which only swimming seems to help.  I found within a week that I could in fact swim 20 lengths! Then I met a man at the pool. He is retired and his name is Peter and he said that since he retired he has started going swimming and to the gym and lost 8 stone (112lbs).  He encouraged me to try swimming half a mile.  So I tried, and I did. And now I swim half a mile every time I go to the pool and sometimes I do 3/4 of a mile. I know I'm not the fastest or furthest swimmer, but I think it's not bad for a pregnant woman, who was kept in the bottom group at school!!

I would like to get rid of the hatched lines and redo her so that all of her is shaded with overlaying Promarkers. You can just about see the effect of that in the top half of her body. 

Spectacles Illustration - IF

Here is my drawing inspired by this week's (Friday 15th March 2013) Illustration Friday theme, 'Eye Glasses'.

I really enjoyed drawing this.  The idea for this came into my mind pretty much as soon as I saw the theme.  I have had to wear glasses since I was around 3 years old I think and I'm pretty sure my little boy is going to end up having to wear them as bad eyesight seems to sprint in my family!  I have to say though, I think glasses have moved on quite a bit since I was little. When I started wearing them in the early 1980's, glasses were hideous!  You basically had no choice of style.  It was the Government-issue, plastic blue-framed National Health Service glasses...or nothing! There is so much choice now and they are much cooler these days. But a new pair of glasses still takes a bit of getting used to.  I remember even when I got the ones I currently wear a couple of years ago, I found my vision went blurry when I turned my head to the side!

Anyway, I took a bit of artistic license on these glasses, they aren't sitting flat on the table as I wanted them to look like they were closing in on this poor little boy, with his back against the wall.  I felt really bad after I had drawn him so I drew another picture straight away of the same little boy at the beach with a smile on his face (will upload later).  Doing these IF illustrations is really useful I think.  I have been hoping to create a little boy character to maybe put into some stories and by doing this and the beach illustration, he has inadvertently materialised! 

 

Materials: Pitt Pen XS, Promarkers (I finally found a use for the green one), and a little bit of chalk pencil for the glass.

Me in the Snow at a Bus Stop

This is what I did yesterday.  I finally braved the cold and got 5 new Promarkers as my reward.  I spent over an hour choosing them! And I'm not convinced I actually got the best selection I could have.  I set out to buy one in a kind of lime/moss green shade...this illustration includes all the colours I bought, apart from a brown one, so evidently my decision making went awry at some point!!  While I was standing at the bus stop I noticed the snowflakes settling on my coat and I was amazed at how easily you can see their pretty snowflake shapes.  I realised that I've never actually looked at a snowflake up close before.  I've only ever seen them as little white blobs. I thought you needed a microscope to see their formation.  How can I have only learnt this at age 36???!

I really like the coloured dotty snow on the ground in this illustration. I chose to limit myself to using only the new colours I had bought that day in this illustration so I could see how they work together. I didn't use the brown though as I really didn't want brown snow!

The camera isn't picking up the colours sufficiently so the effect is a bit lost. I was on the verge of buying a scanner/printer today but it turns out my mum has a spare one she can bring me when she comes to stay at Easter.  Also, I haven't replaced my retractable pencil as I've decided to try and make use of a nice pencil set I have.  This meant I did lots of resharpening of a B pencil to maintain the fine lines!

I had had the idea for this illustration in my head anyway but I realised I hadn't done an EDM for a while and saw that EDM #322 is 'Draw Something Related to What You Do' I got the idea of making the bus stop sign a bit more of a life pointer. Although, incidentally, the bus I was waiting for was the number 36! I also might upload this to Illustration Friday for this week's 'Yesterday' theme.  Not exactly a concept illustration for 'yesterday' but it was 'my' yesterday.

Below are a few different composition ideas I tried for this although the final illustration turned out to be the composition I'd had in my head from the start.  

Whisper Illustration - IF

Much more on the ball with my timing this week!  Here is an illustration inspired by this week's theme from Illustration Friday. Look, I've completed it only one day into the week!!  The theme is 'Whisper'. Now, 'whisper is a lovely noun/adjective but for me this immediately conjured up rather pejorative connotations of being told off in class for whispering to my neighbour. Teacher thinks I'm being a nuisance when the truth is I haven't got a clue what is going on and am too scared to ask.  As a teacher myself and someone who loathed school, I think I'm considering that I might home-school my son when he reaches that age.

I haven't had a chance to hunt down an alternative for the obstreperous white gel pen as it is too cold and grey outside for me to walk to town and get one at the moment - I really don't like the cold.  Oh, I put lots of grey in the illustration because I think school is dull :)

Wool Illustration - IF

I signed up to Illustration Friday three weeks ago and have managed to actually do a picture for all three of the weeks so far!  I'm enjoying IF, as it actually makes me produce something that is complete. IF gives you a theme, and a week. Well, both are pretty useful to me as I am rubbish at thinking up what to draw and more importantly, I'm ludicrously slow at doing art.  I'm a person who goes to life drawing and leaves with pictures of a model with their head or a limb missing, and a person who takes all day to do a 6x6 inch collage. Knowing that there is a cutoff point for when I can get the illustration in is therefore incredibly useful to me!

Here is my creation, a collage, for IF's 'Wool' theme which ended yesterday.  I finished it and uploaded it to IF and Flickr at around 23.50 last night!

It reads 'Grandma has been knitting and we can't wait for you to get here'.

Medium: Collage, chalk, pencil, and an obstreperous white gel pen. Finding close-up pictures of wool was more difficult than I'd anticipated!  It started off as a quick sketch of some baby booties my mum has knitted. They are actually purple but I had no chance of finding photos of purple wool in the magazines knocking around my home so I made these ones white instead!

Storm Illustration - IF

Here is the illustration I did for IF's 'Storm' theme. There is something very problematic with the positioning of the girl and the expression in her face. But I really like how the background turned out and more to the point, the quote and the light in the darkness are very meaningful to me personally.

This looks very different to other drawings I've done and as I'm posting this retrospectively, I can definitely see that I've learnt a lot about composition since I drew this.  I like how the storm effect came out in this though.  I scribbled all over the background diagonally with quite a soft (4B?) pencil, then went over it with a white chalk pencil. Then I scratched over it all with the needle of a compass which created the little white flecks.  The 'light' is coloured with a regular old yellow highlighter pen.

Wheel Illustration

This was my first entry to Illustration Friday.  As I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into or whether I'd even end up actually posting anything I did a pretty simple little illustration.  The theme was 'Wheel'. This is a wheel, of things that popped into my head as I went along.  Some of them are clearly things that were on my mind at the time.  It wasn't intentional. I like when illustrations turn out to be something that you later look back at and are reminded of what was going on in your head at the time. I really like the little Moses baskets on the left.  I was trying to buy one at the time. I've since bought one.

I used a Pitt Pen for the lines and Promarkers for the colour.