Bisected Protea | Canon 40D
The other afternoon I cut some flowers in half and took photos of them as reference for a current project.
Author: kirsti
Components
leaves, squid & jellies | ink & brush pen, pencil
Here’s a little sneak peek of some of the bits and pieces that went into a piece of work I delivered yesterday. The final illustration is off to print very soon. It’ll then become a graphic element on a piece of cabinetry and live out its little black and white life in a retail environment. ETA on that and photos of the final piece is end of the month.
UPDATE: I’ve posted photos of the final artwork here.
WIP ~ Cicada
Cicada | ink & brush pen & digital colour
This is a coloured version of a teeny tiny piece of a currently-underway illustration job.
Sketchbook ~ Daphne
Daphne | Chunghwa ink and brush pen
I used to draw a lot of things straight out of my head. I was in grade school and it was usually during math class. Something about art school in college knocked that out of me and I got tangled up in the need for reference, the need to try to make it right and I lost the ability to draw my stream of conciousness and became horrifically self-conscious about the whole thing. I find it really frustrating now – sitting down to draw and finding there is nothing there. I think in images continually – dream in them too – to the point of exhaustion, but they flee as soon as I pick up a drawing tool. I’m trying to fix that. I’m also trying to be ok with bad drawing – hoping that once I’ve fixed the thought process behind it, the drawing will come.
Sketchbook ~ brush and ink
Chunghwa ink and brush pen
Chunghwa ink and brush pen
WP WIP
details of a wet paint on a current work in progress | acrylic paint on panel
Once the paint is dry the next step will be rubbing off the little bodies of insects that committed suicide in the wet paint. It’s like the La Brea tar pits on a micro scale. Kind of fitting as the final illustration is insect inspired.
Sketchbook ~ underwater, again.
jellyfish | ink & brush, digital colour
A jellyfish interlude blog post while my crazy huge file slooowly saves.
Things learned today:
1. Photoshop won’t save files over 2 Gigs as .psds. You have to save them in a special format reserved for files in the smackingly large range. They are called .psb’s. For pretty stupidly big. I have never ventured into this range before. And having had a long and arduous romp over the last two days with a couple of them 4 times that size, I think I’ll try to avoid them in the future.
2. I am too old to pull an all-nighter. Even the thought of it makes me queasy.
Sketchbook ~ Orkney
Orkney, in one word, fabulous.
Rounding the corner during the first 10 minutes on the island to see in the distance my cousin (once or twice removed – I can never get that straight)’s house in the distance topped with a Canadian flag that was barely hanging on in the typical Orkney wind was also fabulous.
Over the course of the next week we visited neolithic ruins (both above and below ground), dropped in on Stromness shopping week, explored the now decrepit but hopefully soon to be refurbished ruins of John Rae’s boyhood house, survived a gull-lead hedgehog carrion bombing and spent many a wonderful evening in the company of relatives I barely knew I had.
Orkney repaid my gushing admiration with a day of little wind but still pounding seas and I was able to do a little bit of painting of the cliffs at Yesnaby.
Yesnaby, Orkney Island, Scotland 1 | watercolour on arches cold press | 7″x10″
Yesnaby, Orkney Island, Scotland 2 | watercolour on arches cold press | 7″x10″
Alas, we never did see the Primula scotica but we did see a whole lot of other things.
Orkney, I miss you already.
painting at Yesnaby | photo by Darren
lululemon ~ Bethesda Row
A couple of months ago I did some work to hang in lululemon athletica’s Bethesda Row store. The piece has been shipped and installed so I’ve put a couple of images of it up in my illustration portfolio. The illustration was a lot of fun to put together. It involved creating reams of ink blots, a lot of scanning and a lot of piecing things together digitally. And finally, I painted over the printed canvas.
The illustration is meant to be a creative, colourful version of their manifesto. It is also in use as hoarding for a store (or stores) under construction. (It’s currently in use at the Soho, NY location.)
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Final artwork before stretching.
I don’t have photos yet of the piece hung at the current location, but I’ll post them when I do.
Sketchbook ~ Scotland (2)
The Boathouse, Kingennie Lodges, Dundee, Scotland | watercolour on arches hot press, 7″ x 10″
St. Andrews, Scotland | watercolour on arches cold press, 7″ x 10″ (private collection)
This was painted from the front seat of our rental car because it was way too windy to paint outside.
Painting in Scotland is an exercise in painting fast because the light changes so quickly from minute to minute. And in this case, the tide was also coming in and covering up some of the landscape…
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St. Andrews, Scotland | watercolour on arches cold press, 7″ x 10″
Sketchbook ~ Scotland (1)
North Esk Road, Montrose, Scotland | pen
Things have been very quiet on this blog for the past month as I’ve been away. I just got back today from a month in Scotland, Wales and Paris – and although the trip was fantastic, it is fabulous to be home. I did a few paintings/drawings on location while I was away. Here are a couple of them from the beginning of the trip. I’ve been up for almost 24 hours at this point so the rest of them will have to wait until another time.
Old and St Andrew’s Church, Montrose, Scotland | watercolour on arches hot press, 7″x10″
Sketchbook ~ Go Away You Owls
Go Away You Owls | pen & ink
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Go Away You Owls | pen & ink with digital colour
The drawing is from the archives (10 years ago – 22 and fresh out of school); the digital colouring is fresh (in the last week – pushing 32..).
This post is for Fiona who I know checks in on my blog for the sketches despite her dial-up. Which is such a lovely compliment. And I’m sorry my sketch blogging has been so spotty recently, Fiona. So here are two images. (Sorry! It’ll be a little dial-up intensive but I hope it’s worth it).
Fiona wrote a lovely review of her book bag haul from the CWILL BC Spring Book Hatching this past weekend. Looking for Loons was one of the books. Thanks Fiona!
And more great Looking for Loons news – my friend and former agent now literary consultant, Leona Trainer, wrote to tell me that LfL is listed as one of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Best Books of 2008! I need to track down a physical copy of the journal as the list doesn’t seem to exist on line – or at least it has eluded my google-assisted snooping and my rock-turning on the ccbc site.
Kirsti Wakelin 