T Shirt Designs

A good friend of mine and fellow artist is starting her own T shirt printing business and asked me to do a design for her as one of the artists of the month.  The site will be live soon and I will be posting a link when it is.  I produced two pictures for this after being a bit unsure of the first one.  I don't know which month I have been allocated so am unsure of when the shirt will be available, for now here is the unused design.

Sketchbook Work

I have been trying to get along to some drop in life drawing classes.  These are at the whitespace gallery in Edinburgh on Thursday evenings.  Very enjoyable and some much needed practice.  Here is the final picture from the last session.

I have also been trying to improve on my portraiture, still a little flat at times, I am struggling to capture the form properly.  The next picture is done from reference and is hopefully going to be part of a larger piece(its Ed Norton, I hope).

Christmas Cards

In a fit of madness we decided to make our own Christmas cards this year.  After much deliberating we went with an idea I had used last year for a small gift picture done for a work friend.  Animals in winter clothing.

Here is the progression of one of the designs.

There are 3 more designs but this is my favourite.  If I was to do it again I would try to retain the sketchy feel of the original research drawings.  The final images look a little uniform in line weight, which is a bit of a shame.  Nevertheless a fun project.

Welcome to the blog

Hello and thanks for visiting, this is my illustration blog. Part work diary part motivational tool.

The idea is to have somewhere to show my art as well as work in progress and anything else that might be of interest.  A big thank you to Jay Penn a fellow illustrator and friend, who inspired me to do this.  You can visit his site Realms of Faerie by clicking the link to the right.

I have always been somewhat cautious about showing my artwork but have come to realize that this approach does me no good.  My hope is this blog will help to get over this as well as invite advice, criticism and help me improve as an artist.

I enjoy working in a variety of mediums, mostly pencil and inks.  I am trying to include more color in my work as this is a definite 'must improve' area for me.  As for subject matter anything and everything really.

That's enough waffle from me I better go and get some pictures done to put on here.