Saturday 17 March 2018

In the meantime...

I have been rather busy, getting my latest children's book ready for publication. It's the first one with lots of color pictures, so there are all manner of technical considerations of which I knew little when I started out, so I am going through a rather steep learning curve, so I have little time for much else. But I did try to fit in some experimental bits and pieces and random sketches.

I now and then indulge in these rather relaxing and meditative pseudo-mosaics, done in ballpoint and colored pencil:



A botanical sketch:


A quick colored pencil sketch after Van Gogh:


And some experimental watercolors, after YouTube tutorials:




I hope to put final touches on the new book by the end of next week, but who knows - things always take much longer than planned!

Monday 5 March 2018

Sunday 4 March 2018

Pomegranate

Just about time I got a bit of oil painting done again. Oil on board, 25 x 20 cm (= about 10 x 8 inches):


Thursday 22 February 2018

Heads and cows and things

I have been rather busy drawing illustrations for the latest children's book I'm working on. In between, made time for the Instagram "100 heads" challenge. Here are #12 - 15:


And a selection of the illustrations. The mostly empty pages will be filled up a bit with text. That, at least, is the present plan. The thing has not quite come together yet; I may or may not make extensive changes:





Friday 16 February 2018

More sketches and illustrations

A few more sketches for the Instagram "100 heads" challenge thing:


And some more illustrations for my latest children's book. Lots more still need to be done:



Sunday 11 February 2018

New experiments

I have been rather wildly experimenting with all manner of things. I am developing ideas for an illustrated children's story:



The first of the above is in acrylics on cardboard; the second in watercolor. I am more inclined toward watercolor. Other attempts with acrylics did not work out quite satisfactorily. Illustration is really a new thing for me, and it's a quite different skill set from "fine art" (i.e. stuff intended to be hung on a wall). Thus a little journey that is both fun and frustrating at the same time.

Two more in the #100heads Instagram challenge. Due to lack of time, these heads are going to have to be pretty sketchy:



Studies of cattle, as preparatory work for the illustrations - the story will feature a cow:




And in between the cattle, some studies after Hergé's Tintin books. No time studying Hergé's work is ever wasted!

My latest sideline, Chinese brush painting:


I can't get hold of real Chinese brushes around here, so I just used a pointy western one. But this is yet another steep learning curve. The style is not nearly as easy as it may look!



Monday 5 February 2018

Some random sketches

Taking a bit of a break from all the oil painting, and focusing on another project, which may or may not come to fruition. In between, some quick sketches exploring a mostly linear approach:



That is what comes of growing up with Hergé's Tintin comics - it is an approach that has long appealed to me, and I keep on returning to it.

In the meantime I let some talk me into joining a thing on Instagram, known as 100 heads, in which you draw or paint, you guessed it, a hundred heads. I'll have to see whether I do even close to a hundred, but what the heck, here's the first one:


Time for more than such quick sketches I won't have. Who knows, maybe the project will be of some value...