Illustration Friday- Home

Just a quick pencil sketch. A little snail travelling with his home on his back.

Illustration Advent day 18

A llama in a big scarf, drinking hot chocolate. Although it's really not that chilly today (I'm disappointed, as it really should be a lot colder during winter). I'm just having some hot chocolate, myself, and pressing on with Una Ruadh. I have SO much I need to get done!

 However, I'm taking a break for a bit tonight and seeing the Hobbit with Luke. I'm really disappointed this is the last of the movies.

Illustration Friday

The topic is "light"; I'm trying to get used to my new old tablet, but here's a firefly!

Advent day 11

It's a toucan with a christmas present. I love toucans, you don't hear them talked about a lot, though. I wanted to know whether or not they're self aware, but when I tried to google it, there were no results! You'd think someone would have posted this?

Advent catch up!

Days8

7

6

5

4

To be clear, I DID get them done on time, I just kept on forgetting to blog them as well as posting to social media, I know, I'm bad.

Illustration advent day 3.

The shepherds that saw the angel. I'm not religious anymore so I don't know which day this was said to be on, but I thought I'd do it anyway.

And now, to bed!

advent day 2

#illo_advent day 2 :-) #rudolph #reindeer Did you know that only female reindeer have their #antlers in #december?

The first day of advent!

So it's the end of the first day of advent, and someone on twitter suggested creating an illustration for each day of the countdown, using the hashtag #illo_advent, which you can check out on twitter (there are some great little pieces of art). My first illustration is a chilly little robin- I hope you like it! I do so love drawing robins, maybe tomorrow should be some children. My religious background also dictates that I get some christian themes in eventually too, even though I don't really believe in that stuff anymore.

I kind of wish that I had the money and resources here to play around with light like I did for my A levels when I was 16... Ah... 16... cringe. Just for the hey, I tried to get into my long abandoned Deviantart account, but alas, the password has been lost along with my angsty teenage self, and I can't be asked to recover it. I did, however, take a look at the last nativity scene that I did. It is here:

Well, my proportions sucked, but I like the lighting effect, I wish that I could do it again, but better.

Another Illustration Friday on a Monday!

Well... I started this on Sunday. I need to try and complete an IF on an actual Friday.

The topic is SLOW, and my interpretation is based on the tortoise and the hare. TORTOISE- on a side note, I detest people who get tortoises and 'turtles' mixed up, when the difference is EASY- seriously! I consider myself to be on the whole (with a few exceptions) a pacifist, but when people mix up turtles with tortoises (as one ex flatmate would frequently do) it rustles my jimmies! Anyway, I'm not crazy, I'm just having a Monday morning rant!

I hope you like my illustration :-)

Party Dogs!

A self directed promotional project stemming off my scottie with a balloon. I imagined cute little pooches having a party, each with something to represent it. I have a few more doodles and ideas, but these are the dogs that I chose to fully render. Tomorrow I will make them into a little A5 booklet to send off to some magazines in the hopes that I get lucky and they like them! Wish me luck!

I have the scottie design in greetings cards here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/KitchenCrawlies

Illustration Friday

octopus.

Working my portfolio some more

I have so many ideas, but not enough time!

Illustration Friday on a Monday

Last night

To Kill a Mockingbird

Mock up cover.

I have a couple of alternatives, but this is my main one for now. 

I'm working on a new book

I went to see some cows on the 18th (I've been meaning to blog about that for a while now, and will do later!) with te aim of getting some images for research to use in this new picture book I'm in the process of writing and illustrating called Una Ruadh (for the time being anyway).

Here's some process images for the coer I'm mocking up.

Illustration Friday on a Monday

Horrah! Will hopefully get more done this week!

Making some ragdoll cat cards

:-) here's one of my first in progress

I'm illustrating some more cards!

This time I'm sticking to the generic square/ A5 format to save myself some time/ money. Watch this space.

Illustration Friday on a Tuesday

I might actually do another one- this was just a quickieish of about an hour and a half (yes, it does take me a while to warm up, but once I get started...). Anywho, off to Millar's for art supplies in a sec, hoping to get some better card stock for my cards!

I gave up on freehand

And started gridding my pet portraits out, which is much more effective! But it's made me realise even more how much better I am/ how much more I love doing children's illustration. I guess this is just in a vague attempt to make end's meet.

And a bit more

Sending off to the Little Tiger Press

I made a little tiger :-)

I made a Loch Ness monster

Pet portrait

I've been working on some pet portraits lately, to try and build my portfolio a little bit more.

Here's one of Moomin, it took about 1 hour 20 to get this far.

I went to see my kitty yesterday :-)

Hi name is Moomin, he's a seal point ragdoll kitten and he's gorgeous! This is him at about 10 weeks old. I'm really excited because in about 5 weeks we get to take him home! The adult cats the breeder had all seem amazing too! Laid back and reserved, but inquisitive too.

I've been a busy person

I've sent my illustrated dummy off to publishers in the vague hope that they'll accept it, in the mean time I'm strapped for money and dreading council tax. Here are some mini Scottish cards that I made, HOPING to sell them in a local sweet shop.

Blue tit

Trying to expand my portfolio this week :-)

Water-colouring British wildlife

I won a New Blood award :-)

It's only the In Book award (sadly no yellow pencil for me!) But I do believe that I get a nice certificate to go on my wall- which is always great to have! The story was Bucket, retelling my childhood feelings and confusion from a time when I had no say over my own fate. I am really hoping that this helps me live out my dream as an illustrator!

Kitty head pin cushion

I know the bottom isn't very neat, but I realised that I was procrastinating, and rushed a bit. I was originally going to give him a body, but I realised I'd made the head a bit too big, and, well, time...

Hugo sketch

A quickish sketch of one of the cats I saw- I'm planning to do some more stylised drawings, but for now it's a start :-)

Dundee Cat Show

So I went to a cat show today, which was great fun!

Everyone seemed so friendly, and I got up close to breeds that I'd never seen in real life before!

Like this Maine Coon! I held him and he was HUGE, and not even fully mature yet! He is conveniently covering my face, so you shall never see it! 

 They actually show house cats, and not just pedigrees, which I didn't know.

I love this guy's hair, and how it curls around under his body!

I also met this little guy. He was tired, and didn't want to be stroked, but he was beautiful none the less, and let me take some pictures of him!

Look at his beautiful eyes!

This one looked a little bit grumpy! 

You would be too, if you had to watch people stare at you all day!

I love the colourings on this guy!

Hello there!

I'm hoping to draw some of these guys tomorrow!

This little girl is a Maine Coon kitten, and actually bigger than my adult moggie, Gwendolyn.

This little kitten is a Ragdoll- that's the breed that Luke and I are getting in September! I can't wait!

British Shorthair, I do believe!

This guy's name is Danny! So cute! The same as my ex, but more smilie :-) From what I learned, Danny is a fairly new breed of cat, the Asian.

Such big blue eyes!

This guy was super grumpy, and didn't seem to want his picture taken.