Posy and Penguin

I woke up today with this is my head. It's quite similar to a sketch a did a year or so ago in my sketchbook. Its so funny that its cropped up again. This is going to go in my etsy shop as a print I think, I really like it :-)

Goodness me I've done it again...(Illustration for this weeks Illustration Friday)..

The word of the week is 'Duet'..I thought of this straight away..I love seeing the images in my mind come to life on paper :-) I also did all of this out in my new garden studio. The peacefulness actually did me so much good.

Watercolor, gouache, pencil, felt tips and black pen....My new favorite combination!

I hope you are all well out there..Have a lovely evening/morning.

Cheerio!

A lazy day making treasurys!

Good evening all! The new 'Circle' tool on Etsy is so fabulous! I am discovering lots of new artists and crafts people, I have been home alone today with free time and I have been stuck to my laptop browsing Etsy for beautiful things for most of the afternoon...Oops! It's a bit addictive! You can view the above two new treasury's I created today here (Tickle your fancy with feathers) and here (Step into my dream wardrobe).

Things I love days 10 and 11

Hey all, here are my drawings for days 10 and 11 of my project. Day 10 is a section from a tea pot that I own, it's decorated beautifully with elegant birds and different floral pieces, this is my favourite  part of the decoration and it sits under the handle of the teapot.

Day 11 is also my entry for this weeks Illustration Friday 'caged', this is a drawing of an necklace that I own... I possibly went a bit OTT with photoshop on this one!!

Things I love - day 6

I adore this necklace! I bought it last weekend when visiting my sister, I have a bit of a thing for over the top jewelery. In fact when I was at university I used to make and sell Jewelery through a craft shop in Exeter. My pieces were always really brightly coloured  and a combination of beads, buttons, bits of old jewelery, things found in antique shops, fabric etc.

I have really enjoyed drawing this necklace in life it is actually quite brightly coloured but for this drawing I wanted to tone things down a bit, to give it a softer feel. So here it is a drawing for day 6..

I have spent a lot of time today updating my website, I am slowly learning how these things work but it is a continuous learning process. There are so many of my images that need tweaking and I would love to have a big chunk of time to just work on it, at the moment progress seems slow, bit by bit..! However I did put together 3 new images today using owls that some of you may recognise from a few months ago. I plan to do ten of these owl images in total with the numbers 1-10, I want to start selling greeting card/postcards on my Etsy shop and this owl project might just be my first. This idea was partly inspired by my Grandma and my Mother who were talking last weekend about their favorite/lucky  numbers. I'm not sure if I have any, how about you?

I think they're sweet, twit twoooo!

Paisley Parrot pattern and holidays!

Hi all, I have just got home from 9 days away in the sunshine in Crete. I had a wonderful time and it was a bit depressing to come home to a gray city where I have to have the lights on in my flat..in July!! Anyway to brighten things up here's the other parrot pattern I was working on, I like it, and guess what? the suns come out a bit :-)

When I was away I took lots of photos that will definitely inspire artwork and patterns. Its always nice to travel to new places even if they aren't as far away as Crete. I wanted to share some photographs that I took whilst on a trek we did through the Samaria Gorge.The gorge walk begins at 1227m above sea level and is 16km long it took us roughly 5 hours to complete. We were a bit competitive though and didn't take many rest breaks! Half way down into the gorge I began to really suffer. I wasn't suitably dressed at all...wearing canvas daps and a dress!!! My shoes went into the bin at the end as the soles had worn through and cracked! I had the most painful feet for the rest of the hol..you live you learn right?! at the end of the walk you come to an amazing beach at the shores of the Libyan sea. The south of Crete had the best beaches...The water was just so so clear.

At the start of our walk, 1227m above sea level;

Unreal right? These images look like they came right out of a book, then further down the gorge we started to come across abandoned villages. These really were in the middle of nowhere, and in winter the people who lived there wouldn't be able to get out at all due to the river which apparently rises so high that it's impossible to cross.

There were lots of churches along the route, tiny little places, this one was my favorite. I love how  it's nestled against the cliff and the church bell was strung from the tree in front. It really was a beautiful place.

And here I am, inappropriate trekking clothing and all I really enjoyed it! At least I remembered the drinking water! So some Crete inspired patterns coming soon, I have a huge list to add to my other huge list of pattern ideas, which is always a good thing, bye for now :-)

Sqwark!

Parrot's and paisley...I LOVE my new pattern design :-)

More paisley parrots coming soon!

Illustration Friday ' Paisley'

Illustration Friday 'Paisley'.......Yes it's a paisley parrot :-)....Bird mad! I think this would be a cute piece of art for children's stationary.... What do you think?

Mr Peacock

FINALLY an evening to draw, say hello to Mr Peacock!  :-)

 I also have another image almost finished that I'll post tomorrow, night all!

My first repeat pattern!

I'm so so excited! I've just created my first repeat pattern...I've wanted to know how to do this for ages! I followed an online tutorial for creating repeats in photoshop. It was really easy to follow and on a site called Mels Brushes, this is a really informative site created by a UK based Graphic Designer. I'm so thankful that there are people out there sharing their knowledge about these things...Here's my first repeat pattern!

flying by

Here's an image I've been working on, I can't decided whether there's too much space on the image. One minute I think it works and the next I'm not sure. Maybe if the flowers were larger or the whole thing was more of a rectangle shape with the bird flying directly above the flowers?

A little update

Hello! I've been doing a lot of drawing lately but not much finishing off on the computer. I spent this afternoon working on some of my drawings in Photoshop. I need to get it all going again but will have no chance to do anything until next monday evening due to work...rubbish..Can't I just stay home and draw and get paid??! Maybe one day :-)

Here's what I've been up to..



The peacock, this drawing has inspired some patterns that I will post soon.



Listen to the birds...wise words I think! I really love the style of these birds. Its nice when you surprise yourself!



More birds...I know, I'm obsessed! These swans have been drawings in my sketchbook for months and now they've become something.

Last but not least one of the pattern ideas I've been working on. Basic floral shapes...would be a nice simple textile print don't you think?


Bye for now!

Sketchbook

Here are some recent pages from my sketchbook. I recently bought my first set of coloured fine liner pens and am enjoying using them so much! I'm still waiting to get photoshop and illustrator for my computer...I can't wait to get going on some digital work. Bye for now!

Sketchbook pages

I have had little time to do art lately or to blog, here are some pages from my sketchbook. I'm working in black pen a lot lately which I really like. I'm thinking black lines, bold colours and collage...mmm

Girl with birds

This is something I put together recently, at the time I didn't like it.. As you can see compared to my other work its much looser and free in it's style..I spent some time on it today and I'm starting to like how expressive it seems.

One from me sketchbook

birds on the brain..

I just can't help myself..

Bird of prey experiment

Just something I've been playing with tonight...I'm sure theres many ways that this could go, I can't stop drawing triangles at the moment...triangles and birds :-) Pen and ink drawing, shapes done in Photoshop..

sketchbook pages

I've been drawing lots of birds lately, I really love this penguin..I'm imagining some bird/flower combination's coming up!

bird house

Here's the last for today..This is based on a dream I had a few nights ago. In my dream I was watching myself draw lots of squares and houses on a big sheet of paper..So I thought i'd play with my memory of it and see where it took me..here it is...