'Tis the Season & Happy Thanksgiving

'Tis the Season

10x9cm

Watercolours and Watercolour pencils on illustration board

Firstly, a very Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends who celebrate this wonderful tradition.

More experimenting with watercolours and watercolour pencils, with the dual purpose of having an image for our Christmas Cards.
I really shouldn't be drawing or painting at all at this crazy time of year with so much to do and so much going on for us at the moment. Apart from a new puppy, which is giving me sleepless nights and has me standing out in the rain with an umbrella waiting for 'piddles' to happen, we have one son in the throws of uni exams (Psychology), one son just finished his HSC and has been enjoying formals, schoolies and the like, the third son is on school camp and just completed his School certificate, and our youngest is busy with all the pre Christmas activites that Primary Schools are so good at organising. Between that and trying to fit in Christmas shopping, spring cleaning and still catching up with friends, I think art really is my sanity escape, rather than simply a source of income!!!

Dancing the Night Away

Dancing the Night Away

8x10 inches

Watercolours and watercolour pencils on watercolour board

I have always loved watercolours - not actually painting them, for this is a medium I never seem to master, but because of my struggle, I have all the more appreciation for those who do master this beautiful medium. My biggest problem is letting go and allowing the paint to do it's thing. I really wanted to do this painting in watercolours alone, but then that need for detail and tightness reared it's ugly head and so I ended up relenting and completing it with watercolour pencils. Nevertheless, I will continue to play and practice and research and see if I can't one day produce a piece that I am truly satisfied with.

One of the things I have also struggled with is using masking fluid. This time, I tried watering it down slightly, and that seemed to make the liquid much more managable. I have read on numerous sites that the masking fluid is impossible to remove from your brushes once set, however I use a wonderful product by Pascoes called Oomph Glue Remover for removing everything from adhesive to chewing gum, and to my delight this liquid removed all traces of masking fluid from my paint brush restoring it to it's former glory. It smells a little like the Zest-it used to blend coloured pencils, so I'm wondering whether the Zest-it might also work for those who have some.

Let's Count Kisses - Children's Picture Book

It is with mixed feelings that I post all these illustrations onto my blog. This has been the most rewarding and satisfying of projects to work on, and I feel a sense of elation that for my part, these illustrations are pretty much completed, but also a sense of sadness that this lovely project has come to an end. Hachette will be publishing this picture book as a flap book which is why the spreads are so long - most of them need to cover three full pages. Let's Count Kisses will be available in shops from May 2012 and is targetted at the 0-2 year old age bracket as a combined counting book and bed time book for parents/grandparents to share with their little ones.

Special thanks must go to Geoff Walker who kindly allowed me to use his beautiful butterfly photographs as references for these illustrations http://australianbutterfliesphotographed.com/defaultIframe.htm.

I apologise also, for the long stint with no postings, but working on these illustrations has left little time for anything else, and hopefully I can now catch up on a bit of networking and blogging.