New Adventures In Mark-Making!

I just discovered a dip pen and ink that I bought way back at the start of my course, and then promptly forgot all about and didn't use, in the back of the cupboard next to my desk, so decided to try it out... Wow! I love it! The variation in line-width adds an interesting element to my drawing and I like the added density of the ink. I played around with it for a while, scribbling and mark-making, and drew a quick self-portrait reflecting my recent mental state (brain-fried!).



I'm eager to experiment some more with this new (to me!) method of drawing!

"Books & Literature"

So, I've been working on this idea over the weekend for the theme of Books & Literature. While I'm happy with the drawing of the characters, I was having some issues with the colouring. Originally I had tried a full-colour approach, but because there is quite a lot going on in the backgrounds, I was not happy with the overall effect which looked too busy. After trying a few other approaches to the colouring yesterday, I decided to give up for the day...

Today I was working on something else, and was looking at a black and white print out of the outlines I did yesterday. A few scribbles on the page later, and I decided to try a new approach, adding flat areas of colour to the backgrounds, while leaving the actual figures uncoloured. I quite like the effect which is something different for me.

Think Pink - DIY WOMP Exhibition

I've been working on an illustration for the second DIY WOMP exhibition which will be held next month at 93 Feet East's Pink Bar in Brick Lane, London. The theme for the exhibition, rather fittingly, was Pink. My intial idea was to create a single image containing a variety of pink-related characters, items and objects, but after doing some work on this, it just wasn't working for me. While I was happy with some of the inidividual drawings, they just weren't working together. Then I hit upon the idea of using the drawings I was happiest with individually, and creating a series of illustrations. I also wanted to experiment a bit with a new method of working, so decided to go out and take some photographs around London and use these as the backgrounds to place my illustrated characters within. I ended up creating a series of 4 images:


Not that it's particularly relevant in order to understand the images, but just for reference the illustrations/photos are from top to bottom: A pink pig eating pink marshmallows on the monument in the centre of Seven Dials, near Covent Garden; A punk with pink hair eating pink candyfloss by Camden Lock; A pink flamingo checking out the pigeons greedily scoffing food from the bin in a park near Soho; and a pink elephant outside a pub near Seven Dials.

I'm happy with the results and would like to continue playing around with combining my images with photography.

And in an uncanny display of real life imitating art, my friend Arina took this photo over the weekend after I showed her the first image in the series...

A Portrait of The Artist

I've been playing around this morning with some new techniques, drawing using pencil and adding shading, then scanning and colouring on the computer, but keeping the initial drawing. I combined this with a photograph I took of my desk (now that I spent the last two days clearing it up!). I quite like the contrast between the hand-drawn and photographic elements. I will explore this process some more...