Ink, acrylic & illustrator play

Not sure where the idea to draw an octopus came from - just another thing I wanted to get onto paper.

Wasn't happy with my sloppy painting at all. It was harder to do the flicks with the white acrylic then the thinner black ink I've been using a lot of recently. In a desperate attempt to make something worthwhile from this piece I used the Illustrator image trace (again).

In retrospect, I can see that I should have spent more time drawing the octopus out and planning where I wanted the white paint. Instead I just blocked in the black first and then hoped for the best. 

Drawing could have been better but I love this process. 

AHS things

Whilst re-watching American Horror Story Coven, I noticed this scene and thought it would be interesting to draw something similar with my own interpretations of the characters.

I got really stuck with drawing the figure so I gradually started changing areas to look more exaggerated like Hayden Williams does with his fashion illustrations and to see how he actually draws the legs when the figure is walking/posing. Williams does this because it shows how the garments are supposed to hang and in the fashion industry long legs are more desirable. However I think it is good practice to play with the shape of body parts and see what still looks remotely realistic. 

Figure one of five:

Supreme Bitch Witch.

Repeat pattern play

Falling in love with simple tattoo style artwork recently - had to get something similar out of my system.

Grrrl power

Have been thinking a lot about inequality recently. The only type of inequality I feel I can relate to is gender inequality and I know that I could be far worse off..

Using the felt tip fine liner pen again & using Illustrator image trace - I think I'm getting the hang of this process and I'm still loving the lines it helps me produce. 

Testing a new process..

To keep me busy over the summer, I responded to an email about doing some illustrations for a children's book. The client did not specify much about the sample work they wanted me to produce - only that the subject was a 4 year old boy whizzing through the air on the back of a stork, en route to a foreign land and that they wanted it to look a bit like the Mr Men illustrations (bold colours etc). 

Straight away, I went and found any Mr Men material I could find by Roger Hargreaves. I tried to take note of the kinds of colours he used and the different line qualities. 

Initial sketch:

I used a felt-tip fine liner, scanned it in and used the image trace function in Illustrator. I love the quality of line this produces but I don't love this attempt..

 I re-drew the image again and tried cropping it because I didn't really like the A4 version. I am pleased with the line quality, however I do think that I could improve the composition (this would have been easier if I had been given a format to work to - the client could say something completely different to what I have produced thus far..).

I didn't put in lots of detail because this was just a sample and I wanted to focus on getting the correct aesthetic for the client. However, could this have been a mistake? Part of me feels as though I should have spent more time on this..

Trip to Slovakia

The purpose of this trip was to collect material for a charity/project's pilot which will eventually organise trips for groups such as Scouts & Guides. 

It was an interesting trip to say the least. We were on the border of Hungary and Slovakia and stayed in a place called Sahy (sha-he). The weather was great and I got to try out some interesting activities - such as making natural clay bricks, making rope and using a loom to make a rug. One of the best days of the trip was the last day - we got to spend the morning wandering around Budapest, where I would love to visit again in future.