Miss Congeniality

Miss Congeniality

8x10 inches

Watercolour pencils, coloured pencils and pan pastels on wood

I thought I would have a bit of an experiment using the coloured pencils on black gesso and am not sure whether I like the result or not. The pan pastel background sank away and dulled quite a bit, so I redid it using some Derwent Coloursoft pencils. Thankfully there is very little, if any, colour change to the coloured pencil work once fixative is applied. Whilst I really enjoyed working on the black, it is always really hard to get a good scan once finished. I am about to start another piece on the black, which will have a bit more colour and see how we go from there.

Easter Art

Rebecca Louise

4x6 inches

Coloured pencils and pastels on wood

George - Giraffe in a scarf

8x10 inches

Watercolour pencils, Coloured pencils and Pan Pastels on wood

Firstly wishing a really happy and safe Easter to each and every one of you.

These are the two artworks I have worked on so far over the Easter break.

Rebecca Louise is my brand new niece, born last Wednesday the 20th April. Sadly, I won't get to see or hold her until she is probably walking as we live too far away, but thank goodness for photos and the internet!!!

George was done just for fun, although I did regret adding the scarf once it was all finished :)

Mel

Mel

8x11 inch

Coloured pencils, pastels and pan pastels on Marine Plywood.

This portrait is of my son Ben's beautiful girlfriend Mel. The inspiration for this style of portrait is the stunning work of Bijan Djamalzadeh, better known as Sara Moon who's beautiful soft artwork I have admired for years. Unfortunately I find it really hard to get good scans of pink and so the pinks in the portrait are a bit brighter than they appear in the original portrait, but it is the closest I can get. I would like to start advertising commissioned portraits again, but would prefer to offer something a little more creative, rather than a straight reproduction of a photo and hence the motivation for a bit of experimentation with portraits.

Daisy

Daisy

8x11 inches

Soft, hard and pan pastels and some coloured pencils on wood

I have been asked by several artists how spraying of multiple coats of both fixative and varnish affects the pastel work, and so thought I would do a work in predominantly pastels to see just what happens. There was definitely quite a lot of sinking and changing of colours, particularly in the background, so for anyone who is concerned about keeping their colours true, then I wouldn't recommend this process at all. In this instance though, so long as the skin tones stayed reasonably true, I wasn't too worried about changes in the rest of the artwork - in a funny way, I actually like the unpredicability of how the finished artwork will appear. I was a little heavy handed in some areas of the background where I have tried to soften the two corners that I felt were too dark, but did find that much of the softer overcoat darkened into the undercoat. I should probably have taken a before and after scan to show the impact on the pastels and will do that next time so you can get the full idea of colour changes.

My Rock

My Rock

8x11 inches

Coloured pencils, Pastels pencils, Conte pencils & Pan Pastels on wood.

This is the woman who is my rock, my best friend, who first introduced me to art via her own creativity, and who has taught me more about life and love with more wisdom than anyone I know - My Mum ox

Ben

Ben

8x11 inches

Coloured pencils, watercolour pencils and pan Pastels on wood

This is a portrait of our third son Ben, although the reference photo was taken quite a few years ago, as he is now 15. He was such a placid, easy baby and toddler (perfect for a third child) - he's still beautiful, but is a teenager now, so what more can I say!!! Anyway, his school is holding a portrait exhibition and they are asking students, family and friends to enter portraits of a loved one, so I thought who better than him. I am thinking of offering commissioned portraits on wood, and might even try a combination of graphite and pan pastels for commissions. The beauty of them being done on the wood is that there is no need to worry about framing, as the D Rings can be screwed straight into the back.

Illustration - Tigers

Tigers

Painted with Corel Painter

This is the final illustration commission for a series of coins for the Coin Club of Australia, and my last digital illustration for a while. Whilst the digital work is wonderful for illustration work, in that it allows for changes so easily, for me I lose something in the creation of a digital work compared to working with tangible media. So whilst, the income from illustration work is always welcome, I have decided to focus for a while on drawing from the heart, and hopefully sell an artwork here or there to help pay the bills :))

CheckMate

CheckMate

A4

Coloured pencil, watercolour pencils and Pan Pastels on wood

Another artwork featuring Muhali, a lovely baby gorilla we photographed at Taronga Zoo a few years ago - by now he is probably a fully fledged teenager (poor parents), but he was very cute at the time! My son has informed me that I have the chess board facing the wrong way (to the front, instead of to the baby gorilla) - he set the board up for me, but I moved it to take the photo. We long ago gave up playing chess with this son, because he beats us every time - I don't have the patience anyway!!!

Back to doing some illustration work this week, so for now the pencils are put aside for some digital work.