Youtube Life Drawing...

I found this a few months ago, but finally got round to trying it out. It was actually really brilliant. And the best thing about it is that you can go back and watch it as many times as you like and (hopefully!) see your own progression and improvement.

(Click to full view)





I did the 'Gary Hume' and 'John Berger' ones. There are 5 episodes. Great for a little wind-down life drawing session if you miss it! Can't beat the real thing obviously, but I think it's fabulous even so.

I bought a cartridge pen with several different sized nibs and a black ink pot the other day, and used them for this. I'm looking forward to using them more. The black ink is "quink" which I assume is quick-drying, and not the artist black ink, but it will do for now.

Link here: http://www.youtube.com/show/lifeclasstodaysnude

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The 'Bonnie and the Toys' Sketch...

I forgot to upload it before. Sketch was done 27/12/10.

A Few Life Drawing sketches...

Click to full view...

Ice-skating at Windsor Park with the cousins on Christmas Eve...



-sketch of the view of Windsor Castle
-sketch of youngest cousin (eating a marshmallow lolly)
-two sketches of men (both with cameras)
-sketch of the carousel set up next to the Ice Rink
-(top left) view of cousin's garden (under snow)

Sketches from New Year's Day with the family...



This first page shows sketches of my youngest (girl) cousin, Sura - She is literally ADORABLE. I didn't want to let her go! I miss her! She's a beautifully placid child, and so so chubby! I loved having cuddles with her :) She looked adorable in a little brown pinafore-style dress, brown top and white tights.



This second page shows more of Sura. The third page shows my (4-year old) cousin, Joe. And bottom-right is a sketch of my auntie and sister hugging on the sofa.



This last page shows my dad sitting on the floor. In the notes to the side of the drawing I have written "Dad sitting on the floor playing a game with Joe, David (Joe's dad) and Grandad".
Also:
-Bottom left: sketch of my (10-year old) cousin, Ellen on the sofa.
-Bottom right: sketch on my (8-year old) cousin, Mollie on the floor, drawing. She's very skinny and flexible, so her head is resting between her knees and her arms are wrapped around her knees as she draws.

I LOVE life drawing. I had forgotten how much fun it really is. It really is one of the best things to do when you're out and about. Life drawing FTW! :D

Bonnie and the Toys - Thank You card 2010

This is a picture of Bonnie wishing Andy, a Merry Christmas from herself and the Toys...



Completed on Livestream a few minutes ago! :D

This took absolutely FOREVER! But I am proud of it! *______*
A lot of tea went into making this, that's for sure! :D

I drew the original sketch for this about 3 days ago (after watching Toy Story 3) and decided I'd like to try and draw the characters. Every year I draw a 'Thank You' card to send to my friends and relatives for presents from Xmas. So this year, it will be a Toy Story 3 theme! :D (WHICH MAY I JUST SAY, DESERVES TO BE APPLAUDED AND GLORIFIED AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE FOR IT BEING NEAR-ON PERFECT AND AMAZINGINGLY SPECTACULAR, DON'T YOU AGREE? PIXAR ILU) :D

This was SO much fun to colour, I really want to try colouring like this again soon.

And if you do indeed have the 'Art of Toy Story 3' book (as I do) then you will see how I've taken inspiration (colouring-wise) from the page of children designs (which is without a doubt, my most TREASURED AND BELOVED of all the pages in the book :P )

Anyway - Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful time! And a Happy New Year to everyone too! Bring on 2011! :heart:

(c) Pixar - Toy Story 3
Art by me!
Used: Wacom A4 tablet and Photoshop CS5
Time: MANY HOURS ;;___;;

Merry Smithmas!

A little late perhaps....but a merry christmas to one and all! :D

A very rough livestream drawing done a few nights ago of the Doctor and Amy.



Amy has just given the Doctor a hand-knitted jumper (with a very groovy tardis on the front ;D ) to him, for his Christmas present.

(Though it's fair to say she probably didn't knit it herself.... She most likely got a friendly local granny in Leadworth to help her out... )

I enjoyed the Doctor Who Christmas Special, though I wasn't completely enthralled by it to be honest. It could have been more "magical" like the past series. Though I did love the "underwater/fog fish" idea, and of course it was lovely to have it on TV again! To see the characters once more! The next series looks AMAZING. I am way too excited for that to begin!

Happy Holidays everyone

x

Painted Disney Characters - For Cecily

Another page of painted Disney characters. This is for my mum's friend at work's daughter, Cecily. Please click and full view!



I drew her brother (Oscar) some Star Wars characters, ( featured a few posts ago on here ) and after seeing them, she wanted some characters of her own as well! So her mother wrote down her favourite Disney characters for me to do and here they are!

Left to Right:
Ariel, Tinkerbell, Stitch (and Scrump), Minnie Mouse, Chip, Dale, Aurora, Alice.

It was her birthday recently as well, so I thought I might as well do this for her. It's good practise, I guess.

University Prospectus Project - Character Designs

Myself and two friends put ourselves forward for an oppurtunity to help the marketing side of our university create a prospectus aimed towards year 9 students in Secondary schools (so around 14-15 year olds).

They originally would hand out the normal university prospectus to these students, but these had long paragraphs and very limited pictures/photos which would interest this age-range.

So our "client" who works at Newport university decided to put forward the idea of creating a comic which would show a main character, as a year 9 student, going to a Careers Fayre and learning about what university is. Our character (who we named Joe for the time-being) is a somewhat naughty and un-motivated student who prefers spending time on his DJ set than learning academic subjects. His mother appears in the comic, and she is against him and his music choice of interest.

Joe has the typical "angel vs. devil" over his shoulder which helps the story unfold. Other characters include fellow Secondary school student-friends as well as a woman who he meets at the Careers Fayre who tells him about university life and what to expect (etc)

It was a really great idea, and we had a very tight deadline, which required a lot of very quick work, but we managed to get it done in time! To our relief!

I shall upload the comic panels I contributed to soon. We have literally just today given them to the client - They are being coloured by the design team at Newport uni now, and hopefully will be sent off to be printed on Friday! Myself and my two friends who worked on this project will receive two free copies of the final prospectus! I can't wait to see it!

Anyway - so here are my initial designs. (Please full view!)



We started off by each designing the main character. Our client wanted it to be a boy, so we all came back with boy designs.

The first section (1/4) of this page shows my boy designs.

None of my boy designs were chosen, so I was assigned the role of background character design.

The second section (2/4) shows designs for the 'mother', 'girl' (Secondary school friend who wants to be a teacher) and the other 'girl' character who 'Joe' meets at the Careers Fayre. I have highlighted in colour the designs that were chosen for the final comic.

The third section (3/4) shows further designs for the 'mother' and for the other 'boy' (Secondary school friends) characters. Again, chosen designs are highlighted in colour.

The final section shows further designs for the 'girl from the Careers Fayre'. The chosen one is highlighted in colour.

I shall upload the finalised lineart comic panels soon. And when I receive the finalised coloured prospectus' I shall scan/photograph them and upload here on here.

:)

Obligatory Mermaid

When in doubt, draw a mermaid.

Fifi and the Jam Jar (Animation)

Fifi struggling to open a jam jar...

As part of my second-year Animation course at University of Wales, Newport.

Fifi is now about 16-17 years old. Her design has been changed slightly too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PEq7M9UTH4

x

Little Girl Design

This little character popped up whilst sketching (for a very exciting project I will be telling you all about soon) last night...



She's inspired by the new range of clothes designed by Stella McCartney for kids - http://www.stellamccartneykids.co.uk/page/lookbook.htm

The first girl that appears when you go to the link is who the illustration is based off. (Maud) <- Who's name is SO adorable. I love her hair, isn't she cute?

The clothes are amazing! Aren't the colours lovely? I love it all so much!

x

Maxine - Progression

A "Start to Finish" progression of a piece I did for my uncle's birthday.

I started another piece about a year ago, but never finished it. I finally got round to completing this about a month ago. It took me 3 days.



Inspiration by Alphonse Mucha of course! Who else?! :D
Specifically inspired by this illustration of his, from which I based the pose and background: http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/2218/mucha25.jpg

From Left to Right:
First initial rough layout sketch, Pencil sketch, Inked stage, Photoshop practise colouring, Letraset(greys) marker colouring, Final framed picture

I've had to keep off from uploading this until I knew they'd seen it! I got a message from my auntie today saying how she loved it :)

So here it is!

Art (c) Me (with inspiration/reference from Alphonse Mucha)
Time: 3 days
Used: Pencil, Pilot 0.4 Black fineliner, Photoshop CS5, Letraset (Greys) marker pens.

Zoom in for a closer look!

Spirited Away...(a request)

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Some Digital Drawings (requests) ...

I've been practising a bit more in Photoshop as of late... I decided to try and draw some requests asked of me by some deviantart followers... I love monochrome colour schemes. Inspired muchly by "ktshy" and "B1nd1" on deviantart, style-wise.






3 more requests to keep me going on the mental "to-do" list... I hope to experiment a bit more in time :) I need to seriously start finding a style that fits who I am and what I want to say.......... /isn't everyone? And get a hand of technology in general. Blahhhh.

Back at uni now, starting 2nd year Animation! WOOP! Cannot wait to get stuck into the course again. First project is a "soundscape" task (I think)... I hope it's not too "abstract"...I really want to continue with character animation! I'm sure I'll most likely be stubborn about the task and just end up being completely literal again :P Ho hum.

Star Wars Characters - Quick drawings

A very rushed few sketches of 6 Star Wars characters for my mum's friend's son. It was his birthday a few days ago, and the present my mum had ordered for him on the day of his birthday hadn't arrived in time. So she asked me to quickly draw some simple and cute Star Wars characters for him instead of waiting.

I have watched all the films, but I was never really "in" to Star Wars as a child. I just didn't like Sci-fi much. I'm slowly getting more into the genre now (with Doctor Who) but I don't know if that's in the same "league" as Star Wars(?) Maybe? So excuse my inaccuracies!!! (My friend who's a BIG-TIME fan of Star Wars says my Yoda is inaccurate as he only has a lightsaber in the newer films, as supposed to all the other characters drawn are from the older films...) :P Oh well.

Quickly drawn in pencil and coloured with Copic marker pens.



My mum told me that her friend's son absolutely loved it though. Which I was happy about :) But now his younger sister wants me to draw her some Disney characters for her!! Better get to work again then!

Disneyland Paris! Sketches

I went to Disneyland Paris over the weekend. We (quite literally) had the whole of Saturday at the park. It was fantastically knackering. 12 whole hours at the park, my friend and I deserved a medal!!

I didn't have time to draw whilst at the park, so the next day (on the coach coming back) I decided to sketch some things I remembered in particular from my day there. The people I drew really stuck in my mind, (some comically, and some aesthetically speaking).



I've written notes beside each drawing to explain why I had remembered and drawn them. My writing's quite bad, so I'll write it up now for clarity...

(Top left drawing) - I remember walking past this guy in the Disney Studios Park quite early on in the day. He was asking a cast member for directions (I didn't draw the cast member as I couldnt specifically remember what he looked like.) The guy was casually holding a cigarette in one hand, map in the other and Minnie mouse ears on his head, completely non-chalent. I thought it was hilarious! :)

(Bottom left drawing) - A cast member in the old hotel uniform for the "Tower of Terror" ride. He was really creepy and cool. You could tell he loved freaking everybody out. He was awesome. He helped me get my fast pass ticket for the ride earlier in the day, and then recognised me and my friend again as we walked onto the ride when it was our turn. (My friend and I were wearing quite distinguishable clothing apparently). He was cool, so I drew him.

(Middle large drawing) - Walking around the park, it was a shock NOT seeing peole putting effort into what they were wearing. It was a sea of black, grey and white clothing!!! How boring!!! It was all very "casual" which I was surprised at. Surely if you knew you were going to Disneyland you would make some sort of effort into having even just a bit more colour in your outfit for the day????!! Apparently not...

This girl stood out in the crowd though. Her outfit was very simple but really chic. A light yellow slightly fluffy knitted jumper, light brown tailored trousers with cute shoes and a short bob of blonde curly hair with Minnie Mouse ears on her head. She was so cool. It was so nice to see! Such a breath of fresh air in a sea of boring clothing!!! I instantly "etched" her in my mind so I could draw her later on.

(Middle bottom drawing) - Little girl probably about 5 or 6 years old. Perfectly blonde, long curly hair and blue eyes. She was wearing the whole Minnie Mouse costume and she looked so cute. White tights, little "Alice In Wonderland" black shoes and the Minnie Mouse red dress with white Polka dots and belt, and of course the Minnie Mouse ears. So sweet!

(Bottom right drawing) - Another little girl wearing a Belle dress. This was about 7:30pm on the day. My friend and I had grabbed a bench to sit down and relax for a few moments. I noticed this family nearby. The little girl (no more than about 8 years old) had just been spoken/shouted at quite loudly by her dad.So she went and sat down on a bit of wall and put her head in her hands and started to cry. I don't know why I remembered it, but I just did. I suppose it's just how children are when they get over-whelmed by having such a fun-filled day. I think she must have been very tired. Poor thing. I think she was better after a few minutes though. It's all very short-lived with children isn't it? (My youngest cousin's favourute tactic for sympathy is "crocodile tears" if he wants anything.)So maybe the little girl was wanting more fo smoething and her dad denied her request? I don't know. Still, the image of her crying in her Belle dress still stuck in my mind.



On this page I skecthed myself and my friend's outfits for the day. (I'm the bottom one)

Also, the top right sketch was another remembered moment from Disneyland.
This was on the Main Street USA where, in the centre, they have "Meet and Greet with Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen". There's a white gazebo/band-stand hut (I don't know what it's proper name is) and this is where the characters stand. Three of the sets of stairs that lead up to the gazebo-hut had the parents with their children queuing up infront of them. So three separate queues of parents and chldren. The child would go up, meet Tiana and Naveen, who would then pose for a photo with the child. Once the child's turn was up, they would go back to their family and Tiana and Naveen would automatically walk over to the next "entrance" of the gazebo to await the arrival of the next child. I don't know if that's clear, but it's just how Tiana and Naveen would, still smiling and perfect - all in character, move simultaneouly/robotically to the next "entrance". It seemed quite amusing, so I remembered it and drew it! (Does that make sense?)

But all in all, I had a wonderful day. Tiring, but really wonderful. :)

Cowgirl Thank You Card

I've been really inspired by the amazing Mary Blair as of late. I recently received the book; "The Art and Flair of Mary Blair" which is completely inspiring to me at the moment and motivating me to push my style somewhere different.

From painting the box for my friend as seen in my previous post, I decided to paint my "Thank You" card design (I recently turned 20 )for my friends and relatives too.

It doesn't live up to Mary Blair at all, but I was nonetheless inspired by her.



Painted with acrylics
Time: 4-5 hours

A Painted Box: Disney-style!

My dear friend is going to uni tommorow. So I wanted to draw something for her. I found these really fantastic boxes in Paperchase and decided to paint one for her!
If I'd have had more time I would have decorated the whole box...but oh well!

I asked her for her favourite Disney characters, and then designed them and arranged and painted them on the lid of the box!



I recently received "The Art and Flair of Mary Blair" book for my birthday, and I am literally in LOVE with it! She's so inspiring. I adore her style as well as herself as a dedicated artist! She's amazing. So she was the inspiration behind the style of the characters I painted on the box :)

It was so much fun. I'm now in a complete painting phase!! - I love it! More will come soon! :D

Also, this is the front/side of the box. I painted a few little things here too.
From left-right: Wagamama Chicken Katsu Curry, shoes, Jason Shwartzman, flowers in a vase.



More will come soon!

Gallery Sketches - 28.08.10

I had to go 'man' the gallery where some of my work was exhibited last month. (mentioned in previous posts) It's a very small gallery, but even so, it was oddly quiet for a Saturday... The day before I had popped in for the last 2 hours it was open and the place was insanely busy!
So on Saturday, I brought along my pad of paper and sketched in quieter moments throughout the day.

I printed some little business cards off too...a few people did take them which was cool. I spoke to one lovely lady who came in with her husband and young child. She said she was an animator herself! We talked for a while, and she said she'd worked on lots of pre-school television animation shows for the UK which was awesome!(Something I definitely wouldn't say no to in the future!) So she took one of my business cards. Her husband was saying stuff to her like "oh you could sort out some work experience..." etc, which was sweet, though I highly doubt anything will come of it seeing as it was somewhat of a 'fleeting' visit. But it was still great to speak with a female animator in the flesh!! Definitely very cool :)

Anyway, the gallery has two large bookshelves filled with art books. I couldn't help but have a nose through some of them. There were a lot of Alphonse Mucha ones, so I drew a few characters on this page which represent his style somewhat...
How great is Alphonse Mucha? So timeless. I will always admire his artwork.



The sketch top-left reminds me of "Phobs"' style on deviantart. (I LOVE how he draws 'noses')

The bottom right one is of Mia Farrow from the film "Rosemary's Baby", which I watched the other night. It's supposedly one of Wes Anderson's favourite films, so my friends and I had to watch it. I liked the amount of yellow used in the film (that was very "Wes" :) )

There's also a little sketch of 'Wendy' from Disney's Peter Pan in there too.

Friend Sketches - 23.08.10

Sketches on the left were drawn on the train to London a few weeks ago.
We went to see "Deathtrap" a new Thriller/Comedy play at the Noel Coward theatre in London. It was really good! We met Jonathan Groff afterwards!! :)

The images on the right-hand side are in my friend's house afterwards on the sofa - and some quick sketches of her cat, Rupert :)