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!!! :)

Taylor

Taylor

8x10 inches

Coloured pencil on drafting film

 

Another commission of a beautiful Collie dog. With a run of commissions completed, my next job is to tackle the thumbnails for my next children's book. 2013 is shaping up to be a very busy and exciting year and it is hard to believe we are already in the middle of February!!! :)

King of the Castle

King of the Castle

8x10 inches

Coloured pencils and ink on printed Stonehenge paper

This artwork will be the subject of an upcoming step by step tutorial on working with coloured pencils on printed Stonehenge paper. Doing backgrounds is often the boring part for me, as I love doing the detail and drama of the main subject, so printing on your art paper, (which is really no different to working on coloured paper) can give you another avenue for exploring creativity and having a bit of fun with your art.

This gorgeous Meerkat was a most obliging model when we visited the Canberra Zoo recently and he really did look like the King of the Castle as he lorded over all the Meerkats on the ground below.



Grandpa Elliott

Grandpa Elliott

A3

Coloured pencils on mat board

The reference photo for this portrait was taken 17 years ago by my brother, when he and his wife were on their honeymoon in New Orleans, when Grandpa Elliott was a little known busker on the streets. Now, because of utube, he has become a legendary and much sought after street entertainer. Please take the time to browse some of the many videos on utube featuring this charming and endearing character and I'm sure you'll come away with a smile on your face and feel better about the world!!! :)

What a difference some solvent makes!

I must admit, I haven't had a lot of success in the past using solvents with coloured pencils, and yet I know a lot of pencil artists do use it with amazing results. I often seem to get a rather blotchy result, but on the Pastelmat, I found it really easy and am quite pleased with the results so far. Obviously, I still have a fair bit of work to do on this portrait, but whereas Heartbreak took somewhere between 20 and 30 hours to complete, this one has only had about 4-5 hours work on it and is already well under way. I also found that I could layer the pencil and solvent (zest-it) without previous layers lifting away.

WIP - Face of Symmetry

I rarely post WIP images, but we have been away on holidays and so it seems to have been a while between posts and I'm also still in holiday mode so will take my time with this portrait. Can you guess who this is - she is supposed to have the most symmetrical face in the world and she certainly is stunning. I have been a little naughty and just took an image from Google images, but this is more for the exercise of doing a portrait in pencils on Pastelmat. I am really loving this combination of mediums and will probably start doing my commissions this way, rather than on the drafting film from now on. Happy Australia Day to all my Aussie friends too!! :)

Around the World in Eighty Seconds

Around the World in Eighty Seconds

12x16 inches

Coloured pencils on gesso primed wood

This artwork was lots of fun to do, but caused me a few headaches in the end. Initially, there was no writing on the globe and then one of my sons commented that he felt it needed some text on the globe. At this point, I had already sprayed with fixative and so the pencil really wasn't adhering to the artwork. I should have known better, but used one of my finest permanent markers to add some text. All was fine, as you can see here, until after scanning this, I sprayed another coat of fixative, at which point all the letters bled into the surrounding areas. At this stage, all I could do was use a damp cloth and remove that whole section and start again. Thankfully this worked Ok, although the ocean now has a slightly more uneven colouring, which I suspect from miles away is how the earth would look anyway. We live and learn!!! :)

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.

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.

Losing My Marbles

Losing My Marbles

29cm x 19cm

Coloured pencil and Pan Pastels on wood

What fun I had doing this artwork and it is a reflection of all the things I love - animals, colour and a touch of humour. For those of you who like the background in this artwork, and if you have not already done so, please have a look at the beautiful animal paintings on

Sam Dolmain's Blog. His inspirational art has taught me that it is Ok to be fearless with colour and to put down the colours you love, and not just the colours you see. This is the direction I would like to take with my art, combining realism with bright colours.

Just a note about pencils - those of you who follow my blog would know that I have always been a fan of the oil based pencils such as the Polychromos, but I have found when working on the Gesso on wood, that my old Derwent Studio pencils work best. The Polychromos tend to sit on top of the gesso more and will powder off, whereas it is easier to achieve better colour saturation with the Derwents. This is just my experience and it also depends on your techniques when working with coloured pencils - I tend to push the pencil into the surface with short stabbing strokes, rather than sweeping it across the surface.

Portrait or Predator?

Portrait or Predator?

28cm x 28cm

Coloured Pencils and Pan Pastels on Wood.

Here I opted for a slightly different style of Trompe L'Oeil and this time the frame part was primed with the colourfix primer as usual, whilst the inside portrait was primed with gesso. I did some research on coloured pencils on gesso and found very few samples of this combination and so assumed that the gesso would not be all that receptive to the pencil. Actually it was amazingly receptive and beautiful to work with!!! Fantastic for getting fine detail and also fantastic for smudging the pencil around. All the background was done first with Panpastels which also work fabulously on the gesso, followed by some smudged pencil work. I will definitely try this combination of media again.

Temptation

Temptation

37cm x 37cm

Coloured pencils and Panpastels on wood

Some artworks prove to be lots of fun and some end up being more of a chore. For some reason this artwork ended up being the latter and yet I have had the image in my head for weeks and have been so looking forward to bringing it to life. It could have something to do with the fact that it has taken two weeks to do, (I do get sick of artworks if they take too long) with interuptions from naughty computers playing up and taking three days to fix, followed by a battle with a head cold. I am loving working on the wood, but still struggle to achieve the absolute realism that I am after. I suspect it is all about the preparation of the surface - too much tooth, and the pencil breaks up and has a broken look, too little tooth and the pencil doesn't adhere, so obviously this is something that still needs to be fine tuned. The pan pastels were used in the background only to give the transparent look of the runner.

Str-e-e-e-tch

Little Tood

8x10 inch Commissioned Portrait

Coloured pencils on Terracotta Matte Board

Even though I have enjoyed the challenge of working digitally lately, I didn't realise how much I missed by beloved coloured pencils until I started working on this portrait. It is lovely to work on something tangible and watch a blank canvas evolve before your eyes. I was a bit unsure about this portrait at first when I saw the reference photo, as the front paws loomed larger than life, but the client reassured me that he wanted it just like that. As, I got into the portrait, it was the look of sheer contentment that showed on Little Tood's face, as he enjoyed his long stretch, that struck me more than the paws in front, so hopefully this is apparent to others who view this portrait too.

Art or Real - The Money Box

Art or Real - The Money Box

8 x 11 inches

Coloured pencil on drafting film

I probably should have posted WIP's for this artwork, as it took me all week to complete (which is a long time for me). I want to play with the idea of mixing realism with some playfulness, and this is the first artwork I've come up with. My youngest son's hand is putting the coin in the money box, and I must admit, his hand was much easier to draw than mine was with all it's lines. I might have to find a hand model for the artist's hand I think - someone with lovely smooth hands!!! I started this artwork several times, trying illustration board, Bristol board, Matte board, yupo and finally came back to the trusty old drafting film. Whilst I struggle with getting smoothness when there are darker tones on the skin, for me, no other surface allows for the same level of realism when working with coloured pencils.

Slightly disillusioned!

For a whole host of reasons, I have decided to withdraw all listings on all sites for graphite portraits and will be focusing on colour pencil portraits only. I am also going to be a bit stronger and refuse to do portraits if the client doesn''t have a high resolution photo. I was always a bit of a softy in this regard, feeling sorry for the client and not wanting to disappoint them, but I have learnt the hard way that it just doesn't pay!!

Latest Commission - Molly and Kyzak

Molly & Kyzak

8x10 inch

Coloured pencil on Matte Board

I had been wanting to try out a portrait using coloured pencils on matte board and had resorted to attempting another self portrait, which was rather demoralising, partly because I'm the least photogenic person out there, and partly because there are a hundred more wrinkles, sunspots and the skin has given way to gravity since I last did a self portrait - LOL. Fortunately, I was saved with the commission of this gorgeous pair of kids - far more enjoyable than trying to draw myself!!!

Tiny Commission - Monty

Monty

2.5 x 3.5 inches

Coloured pencil on drafting film

I love doing these little mini commissions, they allow you to focus on fine details, without having to fill in large blocks of colour. It is always the detail in any drawing or painting that I enjoy the most. I offer commissions in a range of sizes, but funny enough the two most popular sizes are either this one or the 8x10 inch. This darling little face was a joy to draw!!!

New Commission - Ryker

Ryker

8x10 inch

Coloured pencil on drafting film

It never rains, but it pours. I have been inundated with orders over the last couple of weeks and am slowly catching up. I can go a couple of weeks with no orders at all, and then it often seems I'll get a string of orders within a day or two (not that I'm complaining!) The gorgeous colouring in Ryker's eyes and coat made this a most enjoyable commission.

A Couple of Commissions

Mini

6x8 inches

Coloured pencils on drafting film

Boscoe

2.5 x 3.5 inches

Coloured pencils on drafting film

I find it quite interesting, as I was keen to try some more pet portraits in pastel, and so reduced the prices on these so that they are cheaper than the pencil pet portraits, and yet people seem to have a preference for the pencil work. It is impossible to anticipate what customers will prefer. It can be challenging to do a background when working on drafting film, and so I usually opt for no background at all. I would have thought that people would prefer a portrait with some kind of colour in the background, but actually this isn't what I've experienced. I am happy if the commissions come my way, no matter what medium, but on the laws of average, for me, coloured pencil pet portraits far outway those done in either graphite pencil, or pastel. Yet, for people portraits, graphite wins hands down.

Latest artwork!!

Aren't holidays wonderful for fostering creativity - I was so much more productive in the glorious relaxed mode of vacation than I can ever hope to be in our usual hectic life. I think we should go on holidays more often!!!!! These are the 6 artworks completed whilst we were away:

Party Animal ACEO (2.5 x 3.5 inches)

Coloured pencils, ink and markers on drafting film

MacCheeky ACEO (2.5 x 3.5 inches)
Coloured pencils, ink and markers on drafting film.

The Flame ACEO (2.5 x 3.5 inches)
Coloured pencils and ink on drafting film.

Sweet Dreams ACEO (2.5 x 3.5 inches)
Coloured pencils on drafting film.

Fagan Park Fine Art Miniature (6.5cm x 9cm)
Coloured pencils and markers on drafting film.

Cool Relief Fine Art Miniature (6cm x 8.5cm)
Watercolours on Illustration Board

All ACEO's are available for purchase from my Ebay Store. The fine art miniatures will be saved for Miniature Art Exhibitions.