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.

Polar Bears Illustration

Polar Bears

Commissioned Illustration

Painted with Corel Painter on a Wacom Cintiq display

This is my second illustration for the Coin Club of Australia. At this stage, I can't reveal too much information about these coins until after their release date (which I didn't quite realise before, and that is why my previous blog entry shrank a bit during the week). I am thoroughly enjoying working digitally, but there are times, such as this week, where I miss the simplicity of picking up a pencil.

I decided, since it looks like much of my commission work will be digital illustrations, to purchase a Wacom Cintiq tablet, which allows you to draw directly on the display screen, whereas with the Bamboo tablet, you are drawing on a tablet whilst looking at a computer screen and this takes a bit of co-ordination. I was so excited when the Cintiq arrived on Wednesday, only to find that the power pack supplied was faulty - rang Wacom and was assured one would be sent the next day. When no power pack arrived next day, I rang again (with steam coming out of my ears) and they arranged to courier me a new pack. It arrived late Thursday, but now I had problems getting Corel to open up on the Cintiq display and it wouldn't maximise without shutting down.

After spending about four hours on the phone to Wacom and Corel, uninstalling both Corel and the tablet and reinstalling both, the problem was finally resolved. And so today, I was able to complete the illustration that was started last Monday. Had I done this illustration in pencil, it would have been finished last Tuesday!!!