I Love You, Mum - Kookaburras

I love You, Mum - Kookaburras

16.5 x 33 cm

Inktense pencils, coloured pencil and Pastel on Colourfix Suede

This is another illustration for the children's book entitled I Love You, Mum, due for publication by Hachette in 2014. I am using Colourfix Suede for these illustrations, which is a really versatile surface and is extremely receptive to a wide variety of media. As the Colourfix Suede is primarily heavyweight Watercolour Paper with the specially prepared primer applied, you can use water media without the fear of buckling and I find any wet media glides over the top, and because of the slight tooth, you get a very even application. The tooth on this surface is nowhere near as sandy or textured as the original Colourfix papers, so you can still get a high degree of detail, and yet also put down multiple layers. I have found most surfaces that allow for fine detail are quite limited in the number of coloured pencil layers they will accept and conversely the more textured surfaces which do allow for lots of layering are not so great for doing fine detail. 

Busy days

Mother Earth

8x10 inches

Coloured pencil on drafting film

I Love You, Mum - Dingos

16.5 x 33cm

Coloured pencil, Inktense pencils and Pan pastels on Colourfix Suede

 

Lot's of work lately and so not much time for posting. The Mother Earth illustration at the top of the page was a fascinating commission where the client presented me with one of Josephine Wall's beautiful paintings and asked me to recreate it in coloured pencil, but requested that I change the animals and butterflies in the wing to add a bit more detail. Josephine kindly and very generously gave permission for me to use her artwork as the reference. She truly is an inspiration and I would love to have her vision and imagination.

The illustration below is the fourth illustration for an upcoming children's book to be published by Hachette Australia in 2014.

I have also spent the last week working on another commission, which I can't reveal yet as it was commissioned as a gift.

Apart from having plenty of work to keep me busy, it has also been a very exciting time for our family, with our eldest son and his beautiful girlfriend of five years becoming engaged, so lots of lovely preparations going on. Back to the drawing board!!! :)