Vacation

I haven't posted for a while because I've been working on a book dummy and now I'm off to Scotland for a week to see my family. I hope to have some new work to post after that. The collage is an old one inspired by my memories of the landscape in the Borders of Scotland.

African village

This is done with the gouache and ink technique I've used before. The technique's rather unpredictable nature reminds me a bit of etching where you never quite know how the picture's going to look until you make the first print. In this case you don't know till you wash off the ink just where traces of ink will remain or how much the colors will fade. Of course you can make edits in Photoshop but it's the very lack of control that makes it fun.

Gardening with chickens

Illustration Friday - popularity

Maybe we shouldn't just judge our popularity by how many people like us. Other creatures count. These are both old pieces but they fit the subject.

Helping in the garden

 

You can see this one a lot better if you click on it.

Music Appreciation

Homework help

Street scene

I've been wanting to do a city street scene - maybe all those trips to Boston in recent weeks. I drew the whole image in pale grey marker on cold press watercolor paper (which I love for the way it takes washes) and then came back after all the color was done with a slightly darker grey marker to go over the people and the tree and make them stand out a bit more.

Suspense again

I wasn't completely happy with my watercolor version of this so decided to try again, this time coloring it in Photoshop. Any comments? One of the things I find hard when using Photoshop is knowing when to stop. I find myself still building layers as if it were watercolor and whereas at a certain point you can't do more to a watercolor without ruining it, I'm less sure where the sweet spot is here.

Illustration Friday - suspense

He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me....

Millie drawing