to Spear or not to Spear

Another illustration I did for Nasou's Grd12 Life Orientation textbook, the intent here I'm certain was to  evoke responses from the students about the controversial painting "The Spear" which was based on this famous Soviet propaganda poster.

It's a pretty crazy story but all the same, it's good to know that a painting can still rattle people as much as this one did…

Toko's back...

It's been a while since I've posted about this little gecko fella! Here's a quick look at the 5th installment of the activity book which features Toko, the intrepid gecko... 

cover illustration

Some of the interior pages, and I must say that designing these games is a 12 year old's dream come true :)

going shopping?

Big news!

My fabulously awesome fiancé has started an online shop on etsy where you can buy some of my illustrations as high quality art prints.

We'll be updating it continuously but there's plenty to see already, just click on the "Drawsome" link in the right-hand menu -----> 

(or the pic below)

Whacky November

It's wednesday! What better day than this one to post about Watercolor Wednesdays?

WaWe is a community blog dedicated to illustrations for kids, every month features a new banner rendered by one of it's members, this was the one I did for Nov 2012.

And recently I stepped in to do the March 2013, it'll be up all month so check it by clicking the button in the right side menu  --->

I'm sometimes asked what steps I take when illustrating, this particular one is a good one to use since it was done in my 'standard' method...

1&2) Once I've sketched out the idea (which I couldn't find to post here) I ink it, sometimes right over the original pencils, but mostly on a clean sheet of paper using a lightbox.

3) Then, on another clean sheet I watercolour the bits I consider 'positive space'.

4) After scanning and aligning the bits, an overall texture is added and any missing details are filled in.

5) The background is then filled in using more textures, sometimes adding some last minute details.

The last step is to add the lettering and some spin-n-shine finishing touches (top image)