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.

Orangutan Commission

This is the second in a series of illustrations commissioned by the Coin Club of Australia for a series, which I can talk about more after the release date. It's funny how much more observant you become when you draw, paint or illustrate some aspect of our world. I always thought Orangutans were rather strange looking primates, but after researching them for this job I have a new appreciation for the glorious shades of red in their hair and their charming, human like qualities. Being an A type personality, having a busy, stressful job in nursing and raising four boys, I was often too busy before to stop and smell the roses and tended to rush through life without really SEEING things. Since allowing my art to become a much greater focus, I have a renewed appreication of the world around us and find myself studying tree trunks and sky colours, and people with interesting faces in a way I never would before.

Every single day I am grateful for the gift of art (and for my beautiful family)!!!

Final illustration in Platypus Life Cycle Series

Life Cycle of a Platypus - Mother nursing her babies.

This is the final illustration for the series of four on the life cycle of the Platypus for Macmillan Publishers. It is amazing how few reference photos there are for platypus even on-line, which is obviously why Macmillan had to call on the services of an illustrator, however I did a fair bit of research for the project and hopefully have achieved some level of accuracy. These illustrations will actually be within small circular frames, so they will be cropped further, but so long as the kids get the general idea. :)

More Platypus Life Cycle Illustrations

Platypus mother lays her eggs in a burrow

Two adult platypus mating

I'm having a very constructive weekend in terms of work. We have a labour day long weekend, and so far the weather has been quite wet and miserable (which I really love) and all the men in our house spent yesterday glued to the TV watching the AFL Grand final and then today watching the NRL Grand Final, which left me with not much to do but work. These illustrations aren't due until Friday, but happily I am now well ahead of schedule and only have one more to complete, which means I can also spend some quality time with the kids during the school holidays this week. Both these illustrations were done using Corel painter and Paint.net.

Platypus Life Cycle Illustration

Platypus Life Cycle - Young Platypus swimming freely

Drawn with Corel Painter and Photoshop

This illustration is part of a series of four I will be doing for Macmillan Publishers for a book educating young children on Australian Animals. The life cycles of all the other Australian Animals have been depicted using photos, but the platypus lays it's eggs in deep burrows and are extremely sensitive, so getting photos in this instance is much more difficult. Platypus are also extremely hard to find in the wild. I have seen a couple at Taronga Zoo, but because they are nocturnal mammals, the tank was in darkness with only a touch of light and no flash photography was allowed. The only other time I have seen them is in a sanctuary in Tasmania, where they were swimming freely in a creek. We visited Jenolan Caves on Sunday, and there is a beautiful walk along a creek bed where platypus have been spotted, but they were all very shy and didn't appear whilst we were there (having four noisy boys in tow probably didn't help!).

They are the most fascinating animals and researching them for this particular job has been an intriguing exercise.

Happy Chap finished.

Happy Chap is finished, but I'm really not sure whether to sell him or not. I rarely do any artwork to exhibit anymore, and so my supply is rapidly depleting. I really don't have the patience to put the weeks of time I used to, into producing the standard of work required for miniature art exhibitions, preferring to churn out quicker artworks every couple of days - much more fun!! Of course, that may change at any given time. That's the beauty of art - you can always move in different directions depending on your mood and the opportunities for learning never end.