Painting Class - week 1

Charcoal and white chalk pastel on grey paper.

I've started a nine week painting class to rebuild my confidence in using paints. I've been drawing with colored pencils for years now and have barely touched a paint brush in that time but I really want to get back into painting again.

The idea of these four panels was to get us used to the flexibility and looseness of charcoal in preparation for starting with paints next week. We used a picture of some bottles as a reference and had to choose four compositions within the picture to draw.

I didn't like these when I first did them but they have since grown on me. I like the contrast between the lights and darks.

Goldfish

Watercolour on Aquarelle Arches paper 140gsm

I painted this as research for a plushy design I want to do. I don't like this painting very much so it's not finished (and won't ever be finished most likely) I do like the colors, but I think I've overworked the fish too much and now I've just lost interest in working on it anymore.

Tardis greeting card

I made this greeting card for a friend's birthday. It's a much looser style than my usual stuff but I'm quite pleased with the result. Created using a wash of watercolor, black ink and white charcoal pencil for the window highlights and text.

Competition!

Hi everyone!

I’m currently holding a competition to increase awareness of my blog and facebook page as well as promote my etsy site.

Everyone who follows my blog

OR

‘likes’ my Facebook page 

between now until the end of February will go into a draw to win their choice of 2 greeting cards from my Etsy store.

If you follow my blog AND ‘like’ my Facebook page, you can choose 3 greeting cards.

You can view my etsy site here. 

The winner will be picked at random by me at the end of the month.


Good luck! :-)

Huia WIP

Here is a work in progress of the extinct New Zealand bird, the Huia. Created using colored pencils. See the finished work here.

New Facebook landing page

I have just finished creating a new landing page for my Facebook page, designed to forward more traffic to my website. You can go to my Facebook page or go straight 

to my website using these links.

Wedding jewellery

For my wedding day I made a pair of earrings, a necklace and a bracelet using freshwater pearls. The bracelet is elasticated and the necklace is held in place with a magnetic silver diamante clasp. The photos seen here were taken by Malin Widstrand, my wedding photographer. You can find her at www.malinwidstrand.com

First attempt at watercolours

Here are a couple of capsicum halves that I painted for my botanical illustration class. This is my first real attempt at using watercolours and I'm fairly pleased with the result. I've always been nervous of painting with watercolours but after doing some research on various different techniques, my confidence is growing.