Giraffe Inking

Three Indian ink drawings of giraffe. I made multiple drawings in the hopes of making different kinds of watercolour paintings, all of these giraffe were drawn with a quill onto heavy A3 cold pressed watercolour paper, so the stakes are high!

Coffee Camel

Here's a coffee camel I completely forgot to post back in 2014. This piece was made during a period when I was experimenting with coffee, the coffee is still sticky and shiny from months ago which is interesting. This is an A3 piece which I created using  watercolour, ink, white pigment and coffee granules. 

2B Pencil Politician

Here’s a pencil sketch I did one dark evening, flicking through the pages of a newspaper I came across some political article featuring a face which took my fancy. I drew this politician in 2B pencil and in the continuous line style.

Huey the Shiba Inu

This is a portrait of Huey – a wonderful black and tan Shiba Inu that I had the pleasure of meeting whilst running my own little dog walking and sitting business.

I was inspired by court jesters and festival colours in this piece and used this inspiration to add lots of different colours into Huey’s otherwise black coat.

This was a commission piece and was created using watercolour, ink and white pigment and is A4 in size.

Fineliner and Watercolour Mouse

Another simple fineliner and watercolour fusion, this time pulling inspiration from a small brown mouse.

In this piece I have introduced more watercolour pigment amidst the greyish fineliner, which when water is introduced kicks up these clouds of murky colour.

I’m really enjoying the spontaneity of the fineliner pen. After the watery clouds dried overnight, I went in with Indian ink and white pigment to define certain areas like the head and whiskers trying not to over do it! This colourful mouse now inhabits my shop.

Bleary Hare

Since looking at Alexis Marcou’s work, I decided to make some monochrome work of my own.

Pulling more inspiration from our rabbity friends, I bled them using fineliners. I drew the image in pencil then drew over them with fineliner and added water to create this bleary imagery.

What I like about this technique is that it takes no time at all to create something interesting. With a little more manipulation and mastery who knows what striking beasts may emerge?

This particular piece is for sale in my shop!

Robin Commission

robin4.JPG

I have finally moved out of my home town of Mitcham over Christmas and now proudly claim Birchington-on-Sea as my new home! Amidst the moving chaos I was able to tend to a commission piece of a Robin.

Going for the layers this time I propped up the picture at an angle so that any paint I applied slowly rolled off creating faint, translucent trails which I like, I think I will experiment more with drips and less with straws.

Winter “Welly”

This watercolour and ink painting was a commission from a friend who has asked and asked and asked for a picture of her beloved British blue “Welly” who is a lovely boy, but getting on. I often shy away as it’s quite a bit of pressure with pet commissions and I’m terrified the painting won't resemble peoples pets at all! 

But it does, and my friend and her family were thrilled with this homage to their Welly, which is great!

Quick Fish Studies

Here are some quick studies of fish for this week, I thought the continuous-line drawing would be a little more challenging on fish as there aren’t so many face details to work with. I found that you can get a surprising range of expression and interesting body structure into your fish studies using this type of drawing.

Emerging Seahorse

During this painting I realised that perhaps flicking spots of paint about isn't as interesting as I thought it was, it just makes the painting look a mess, a mess you can't easily mop up. I wanted the sea horse to unveil through a tangle of reeds but I got a bit scared and started flicking paint around instead of creating some considered shapes. I'll get there eventually.

This painting was made in watercolour, ink, and white pen.

November Polar Bear

This really isn’t my best but I wanted to play with white a little more and what better subject matter than a Polar Bear. I wanted to test myself to see if I could bring out defining features on a completely white animal — more practice needed. Brought to you in ink, watercolour, white pigment and straws!

Messy Siberian Tiger

I experimented with carbon transfer paper for this piece. Slipping carbon paper under the original hand-drawn image, then redrawing over the image is so much easier as it leaves a bold copy of the drawing behind on the watercolour paper. Also carbon doesn’t dissolve away when water is added, so no need for ink! This image was brought to you by that wonderful carbon paper, watercolour, white pen and ink.