Thursday 25 November 2010

Mapping

This is a map I drew one rainy afternoon to entertain my darling Gelibean girl, it's our kitchen, sort of...
If our kitchen were Middle Earth and we were very tiny and were going adventuring in it!

I was super excited to seee it featured on The Hand Drawn Map Association website.  I love this intriguing website and maps and diagrams in general, I really enjoy trawling through their archives, if you're a fan of cartography then check it out.

Monday 22 November 2010

Best Books Ever






This is what I'm reading this week - 'Flights of Fancy' by Peter Tate, and honestly I think that it might be up there with my favourite books of all time.  It contains lots of traditional stories about birds and all the different beliefs surrounding them.  I find books like this so inspiring, it's made me want to do a series of bird pictures, just as soon as I have some time...... it's the eternal cry isn't it? If only I had 6 hands and 48 hours in a day!!!!

Thursday 11 November 2010

Illustration Friday - Afterwards


Originally this was started as an idea for a contest on Red Bubble that asked for an illustration of a poem, conveniently the theme of Illustration Friday this week - Afterwards - also fits in perfectly with my idea.
The poem is this one -

Time Does Not Bring Relief: You All Have Lied

by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied   
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!   
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;   
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,   
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;   
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.   
There are a hundred places where I fear   
To go,—so with his memory they brim.   
And entering with relief some quiet place   
Where never fell his foot or shone his face   
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”   
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
It's such a sad, heart achingly unhappy story and I hope that I managed to capture the mood of it here.  The background was black ink thrown in a slapdash manner at some cold press water colour paper, 11x16, with lots of water and much splattering which I enjoy greatly (although afterwards I had to clean quite a lot of it off of the kitchen which I don't enjoy so much) The ever so sad lady was drawn on to tracing paper in ink and then painted on the reverse before getting down to the nitty gritty and adding all the detail on the front.  The background details were added lastly with black and white ink.
I've really fallen for the tracing paper technique, I suspect I'm going to be using it quite a bit in the future, especially seeing as I had to buy a pad of 50 sheets from the super expensive town centre art shop this week.  I'm so disorganised!  Hopefully next time i'll be using it for some slightly more cheerful subject matter though!  Happy Thursday! XXX

Thursday 4 November 2010

Illustration Friday - Spent



Something a bit different for me, and I finally managed to finish an Illustration Friday topic before Friday!
Topic was 'Spent'....nuff said probably! :)

Monday 1 November 2010

All Souls Day

Happy All Souls Day to everyone, I hope Halloween went spookily and wonderfully for everyone, here's our favourite pumpkin-headed friend - 





His name is Wobbly-tooth Pirate apparently, and thats my spooky little Gelibean he's snuggling up to :)

And now for a beautiful autumnal interlude - 








Mostly views of south Cheshire over the last couple of weeks, we seem to have spent a huge amount of time under that tree throwing leaves at each other, and that last picture is my new favourite vegetable, it's a romesco cauliflower, it's so alien like, and when it's broken up it makes the most perfect little Christmas tree spikes, so beautiful that even the children love it.  Must get on now dears, many drawings on the go, must finish some so that i can share them soon, hugs xxx