wild wild veld

In the sun-baked  veld, many wild things lurk behind the long grass….

….mostly in search of a nice refreshing pool of water.

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)

trees

Oh, happy days...

This week's challenge and one of my favourite themes... tree!

imagination

Imagination... how else are you ever going to get the chance to ride the fabled Lionosaurus?!

This is in fact the original version of the pic in this post... not sure which one I like best... which one do you like?

tall

Yes, yes...

It's a giraffe...
                   and it's tall...

and this week it belongs on IF!

:)

beastly birthdays

As the year gains momentum and time becomes more and more monopolised, it's great to find excuses to string a few stray minutes together to draw little things for the people I care about.

The girls posed for me recently as subjects for some birthday cards: Una (basset hound), Zoe (pug) and our little Peanut...