I was having a bit of a wild, reckless time with colour this week, not the best examples of restraint or consideration but interesting results nonetheless.
Lots of overworking is evident here, I’ve used water soluble pens in the faces of each fox as watercolour dulls when you add water and these pens stay pretty intense. I’ve also used straws and tried segmenting up the foxy faces and bodies which needs a lot more focus.
Again, not the best work, lots of refining ahead!
Here is a couple of things I got inking this week, my blue bunny and devious looking emu. The simple blue bunny was made with watercolour, inks and white pigment. The emu was brought to paper using a couple of neat calligraphy pens gifted to me, I shall paint him in due course!
Many hares were used in my experimentations with inks and watercolour, but only three made it out. Many of the hares weren’t interesting or were overworked messes but these few made the cut to my website, with each one trying something a little bit different. I tried to keep colour restriction and simplicity in mind but I only managed to restrain myself in one piece.
My favourite outcome was the more sombre primarily Indian ink and fineliner painting as it is less busy and more dramatic than my usual colour saturated pieces. I still couldn’t resist the touches of white pigment which help make features and individual hairs stand out!
Owls seem to come a bit more easily I feel, you can do quite a few wacky things with them creatively as being an owl you are by nature whimsical and mysterious.
This blue eyed owl was created with watercolour, ink, fineliner and white pigment. This piece can be found in my shop.
Regarding my ‘Giraffe Inking’ post a few weeks ago, the last giraffe was the only one to make it through my blundering creative process unfortunately. I have mentioned before that making artwork is painful as so many good drawings are sacrificed for (hopefully) a ‘learning curve’ which can make for gruelling slow progress indeed.
But this is why I started oddkness.com so I could see the progress from start to finish, so musn’t feel bitter. This survivor — my pretty eyed giraffe painting was made with watercolour, fineliner, ink and white pen.
Since the birth of our surprise 'tadies' I've wanted to do something amphibiany. We moved to Birchington a while ago now and we were perplexed that the owner had let their 'pond' (basically a big black tray in the ground) get so filthy. We were about to clean it out when we discovered a mass of frog spawn veraciously guarded by mummy/daddy frog who kept a close eye on us as we peered in to check on the spawn every day.
Our tadpoles hatched, and we haven't seen mummy/daddy frog since. We'll get round to clean our 'pond' in late summer when our froglets have long hopped away ready for our new 'tadies' in the spring! The grubby toad you see here was created with watercolour, inks and white pen.
This curious pair were created with watercolour, ink with a touch of fineliner here and there plus white pen. Personally I prefer grey squirrels, as I’m more familiar with them and they are devilishly cheeky. I don’t miss much about living in the city, but I definitely miss the greys.
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!
This barn owl was pretty fun to paint, using my regular materials (fineliner, watercolour, ink & white pigment) and my continuous line drawing technique. I feel that I avoided overworking this piece which I'm really happy with!
I think most of it comes down to having a great drawing underneath. This owl can be found in my shop.
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.
This is a simple painting of a small brown owl I took an interest in. I drew the owl out in fineliner and added watercolour and ink to the finished drawing, after the application of paint I used white pen to bring out certain features. This owl is available in my shop.
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.
Here is the results of a recent raven commission, the brief was to depict a cawing raven as macabre and beautiful as possible. I made three ravens to try out different compositions and techniques with tea, ink and watercolour.
This ‘Marbled Raven’ (below) is my personal favourite and is available in my shop.
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.
This piece was inspired by my love of chickens, and rather than the comic relief that chickens provide, I decided to make my leghorn piece dramatic and serious! I used Indian ink, red inks, watercolour and fineliner — dragging the water across the fineliner to create streaks of grey across the paper.
Here’s a little piece I was quite happy with which I made last year, painted in inks and watercolour over a continuous line drawing and outlined in white pen! This little octopus now inhabits my shop after a year lurking under my bed …
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.
Just a simple illustration I put together experimenting with adding watercolour to a fineliner painting. The ink in the fineliner and the watercolour pigment react creating an interesting cloud seen in the top right hand corner.
Despite the different hues of blue, I stuck to Phthalo blue only. But water and the fineliner soon created lots of interesting blues for me. Once the piece was dry I added and outlined my peacock with Indian ink and white pigment, this painting is also available in my shop!
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?
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.
