Floating Lemons

Hyacinth Bulbs sketch

2012-01-26T15:30:34+01:00

I bought a small pot of hyacinth bulbs at the supermarket a few days ago. Decided to sketch them today. Used watercolours and watercolour pencils on Moulin a Papier Arches hot pressed 100% cotton 140 lb Aquarelle paper. I promise you that those bulbs were growing as I drew them -- every time I looked up the flower buds were higher than before. If I'm brave enough I'll try a sketch once they've flowered. Till then, cheers.

Doodle: Dotty Hearts

2012-01-23T10:23:54+01:00

Doodled some hearts for Valentine's Day, using marker pens. They're sketchy and imperfect ... I considered polishing them up but really liked them as they were, with the rough strokes showing in the white and black, so I just cleaned up the outlines and kept the inner character as is. perfect. Cheers.

Purple Iris Revisited

2012-01-13T15:04:46+01:00

I drew this purple Iris in coloured pencil two years ago, from a photograph I'd taken when I discovered clumps of them growing in my garden. I've just revived it in order to place it onto the new products that were not available at my online stores two years ago, and thought I'd reblog it as it's one of those few drawings that I look back at in surprise, not quite knowing how I managed to produce such detail.

Thought I'd share it once again, along with a sprinkling of pride in being able to say (with amazement) that I Drew That! Seriously. Cheers.

Happy 2012 Moleskine Doodle

2012-01-03T08:45:00+01:00

Beginning the New Year with a new moleskine and a quick doodle on the first page, in ink and marker pens. I seem to have done a lot of doodling as last year came to a close ... it's quick, fun, and releases the mind from stresses of work. Also, I just didn't have the time to spare for the more focused all-consuming coloured pencil pieces that I normally love doing.

Will carry on with the doodling as it helps with inspiration and I can fit it into those quick spaces between everything else, but am also planning to set aside more time for the pencils and paint this year. Trying to find that Balance. As always. cheers.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T13:49:42+01:00

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Quotation text design: Socrates

2011-11-21T16:10:31+01:00

I have a couple of places into which I hand-draw quotations on an irregular basis: a small moleskine specially set aside for text designs, or my large moleskine journal. They're not cleaned up at all and not necessarily "pretty", but I thought I'd start sharing them as I do like the quotes themselves.

This one is from the large journal, quite apt for the moment as I'm trying to regain the balance between work (far too much of it recently) and Life (enjoying the small pleasures of ...).

'Tis the Season ...

2011-11-20T17:58:34+01:00

After a very pleasant summer entertaining and being entertained by lovely guests, I threw myself into the deep end of working the busiest season of the year ... and am only now able to emerge for breath and crawl, exhausted, onto firmer ground.

Here is what I've been up to ... the Merry Christmas text design below has been a huge best-seller for me at Zazzle for the past three years, especially on stamps, tee-shirts, stickers and postcards, so I retouched it a bit and placed it onto new products. Also redid the same text design in red, blue and green, but won't put them all up here!

Merry Christmas white

The Merry Christmas white Stamp in this design, I'm truly proud to say, is at the moment the #9 best-selling product on Zazzle :

Merry Christmas white Stamp

I completely redid my 2 Candy Canes artwork (was never really happy with the original!), repainting it digitally in Corel Painter 12:

2 Candy Canes red green

This Merry X'mas design was originally in green and red, so I touched that up and redid it in blue and red as well:

Merry X'mas blue

Reworked my popular Happy New Year design, updating it to 2012 and adding a new Teal and Cranberry colour combination (it's also in red & black and lime green & pink):

Happy New Year 2012

And finally, I experimented on one of my doodles and did a bit of a 'retro' number on it:

Retro Christmas Balls blue and Retro Christmas Balls red

All this has taken up most of my waking time (i.e. ALL my time as I haven't slept much) and I'm on the edge of burning out, so I'm slowing down on the 'early festivities' and plan on taking some time off this coming week and get some drawing done. I miss my pencil-paper therapy. Cheers!

Little Blue Submarine

2011-10-17T14:39:18+02:00

I've been doing a bit of doodling. Not quite sure where this came from, but I liked it enough to transfer it into Corel Painter and paint over the original colored pencil drawing. Still needs a bit of a clean-up but I'll do that once I'm done with the queue of Christmas and New Year designs I have to finish up or redo! Cheers.

Two Limes

2011-09-21T13:35:05+02:00

A quick watercolour pencil sketch. It's not easy knowing when to stop, especially as I'm used to the more detailed and layered coloured pencil work! The result isn't exactly as I'd envisioned it, but I'll keep playing. Is there a fine line between stubborness and determination? Cheers!

Playing with Paint

2011-09-19T12:12:42+02:00

Time to get those paints out and begin playing. In order to feel less nervous about the whole issue of starting out with a relatively new medium, I decided to mix thing up to begin with and draw something, using paints on only a part of it. Just to finally get those brushes and that paper wet, you see; get those first-time jitters out of the way. So here's the result.

A few years back a friend gave me a lovely key-ring with sago seeds and trinkets hanging off it. I loved it so much that it finally dissolved into bits, but I kept them all. This one had the little silver elephant and some seeds on it, so I've used graphite for the metal bits and painted the seeds with watercolour. Did this in my small moleskine watercolour sketchbook. It's my starting-point with paints, so I'm quite proud of it, awkwardness and all. Cheers!