2 birthdays

 

A niece turned 8, a goblin sword man turned 30. Happy birthdays!

Watercolor

Ok, so after years of sort of aimlessly messing around I am trying to get hip to watercolor in a more serious way. I have swapped out all the semi-opaques and opaque colours in my palette for transparent ones, and I'm finding the results a lot more luminous! This was a gift for a friend and my first painting with the new colours. If you have any watercolor tips or tricks, send them my way why don't you!

I know you must be growing tired of these kinds of questions, but how on earth am I meant to get a watercolour to look good on the computer?! Scanning seems pretty hit or miss, and then even when I save for web all the colours look muddy once I get the image into my browser. Why why why? Help me, internet!

Little painting

Dee, of allergen house fame, wrote a really super story about maps! I was so jazzed about it I made this little painting to go with the story. You can read the brief but lovely story about maps here. You can click his name to see some pictures he took.

I haven't been doing very many ink washes or watercolours for the past little while so it is kind of a pleasure to do. I also did my thumbnails in brushpen for the first time. Look how keen they turned out!

In other news, my blog looks like hell. Blogger has changed the image insertion thing and now when I align my images left all my text wants to line up beside them, like a magazine layout. I really dislike that, but fighting it means a whole bunch of soft returns and checking back and forth in the preview. SO, internet savvy readership, what should I do here? Is there a better template for me in the sea of hideous free templates? Should I finally switch to wordpress? Should I brush up on my CSS and try to sort this out myself? I am eagerly awaiting your advice!

Happy holidays everyone!

Happy holidays and a really super new year to everyone! Thanks again so very much for all your comments, questions and general support of the Drawblog. See you in 2011!

Seven

Somebody turned seven! I have a feeling the colours didn't scan so great. Sorry if they are blinding!

Quickie painting

A special person in my life is turning six, so I did this quickie painting for her.

Nothing says "Hey kid, you're six!" like a chicken leg and some shower-shoes!

Layers layers layers

Day 2

On the table

On the table

The fox is dead. Long live the wolf.

On the table

Homework!

Bye-bye birdoes

Birds are done, off they go to Toronto. Here are some pictures I took of them.









These pictures are terrible, and I am sorry for that. I just don't have a knack for it. I'd be really happy for any advice, so don't hold back.

Giant birds again

Here's an update on the giant bird project. Some of you may notice subtle differences. I had to scrap the first effort as I was losing the interior. Am I fast or what?!

On the table

Humungous bird thing. Hopefully it will be fun to do and I will want to talk about it when it's done. Stay tuned.









On the other table:

Tomorrow

Could be a rather important day for this nut. Stay tuned.

Magic Jingle Forest

Just a study. Who do you reckon could live here?

more

Fox Gentleman

More to come.