The Arrival of the Mermaids; aka.The Evolution of the Fish.

I've been making mermaid door signs.

I wasn't always making mermaid door signs. Shall I tell you how it all began?

It started with an idea of making wooden fish shapes to hang as decoration.

The idea I had was to paint them in bright sea-sidey colours once they'd been cut out and sanded.

 It was fun painting them and I was pleased with the results. I hung some beads on them in matching colours for the finishing touch.

Then a lot of time passed.

I liked what I'd already made but after time, other arty things distracted me so the rest of the fishy shapes stayed in a cupboard for longer than I'd like to admit to you here. 😉

So the day came along when I felt like painting some more fish again so out of the cupboard they came, I painted an undercoat of blue on them while they awaited their fishy patternings.

I love this colour blue, they could have stayed like this and I could have added a pretty thread and beads but by this stage another idea had taken over my imagination...

Yes, I decided to make them into mermaids! If you've read  >this post here< then you'll know that I've had a lifelong love of mermaid images

and of course I've always loved glitter! What better place to have glitter than a mermaid's tail!

I thought it would nice for each of the mermaids to be holding a sign with a personalised name or phrase so that they can be hung on a door...

or on the wall...

 I'm very pleased with how they turned out. I only have 2 left in my Etsy shop so if you like them too you can have one with any name or phrase you like. Please >click here< to see.

Thanks so much for looking and for reading down this far on this slightly longer post than usual! I wish you a very happy rest of the week.xx

♥

Flower Girl Art Tutorial with Coloured Pencils and Watercolour.

I'm going through a coloured pencils obsession at the moment.😊 This painting was done using my set of pencils from WH Smith that I've had for many years and I've added a touch of watercolour. Let me show you my process...

The pencils don't have the names of the colours on them but the one I used for the initial drawing I would say is similar to a burnt sienna.

So I drew her out lightly with the burnt sienna pencil. You can see my faint outlines at the bottom of the picture where I've mapped out where I want her dress to be. If you draw very lightly you can (almost!) rub out the lines if you make a mistake.

I then darkened the lines and added some shading, all with the same pencil.

The next stage I added blue pencil spots to the dress. The blue watercolour wash was put on afterwards. You can do this because of the waxiness of the pencils, it acts like a resist as long as the watercolour wash isn't too dark.

Then I drew in some leaves and flower outlines with green, purple and pink pencils

and filled them in with green, purple and pink watercolour. 

Her eyes and lips were painted with a tiny drop of watercolour and I filled in the trim of her dress in pink watercolour.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my process, if you have any questions I'd be very happy to answer.😊

 I enjoyed this method and I'm sure to be using it again!

Have a lovely rest of the week!xx

Sketchbook Tour and Cambridge

I've had a very busy June including visits across the country to far flung😉Cambridge. I've been visiting there a couple of times a year for the past 10 years and  because my visits consist of walking around all day I feel as though I know it better than places where I've actually lived! It's a lovely little city with beautiful buildings, every shop I could possibly need and the lovely river Cam that's surrounded with a lot of wildlife. I have a fond #notfond memory😒 of sitting on the grass next to the river one evening when from behind my back I felt my hair being mistaken for grass by a cow!
I bought one of my favourite sketchbooks while I was there, an A5 sized hardback made by Seawhite of Brighton. I love that make, the pages take just about any medium I throw at it and the hardback cover and size reminds me of a normal sized book.
It's 10 years since I first visited there and when I was back home again, I became interested in what my sketchbook from 10 years ago was like. Here it is above in this little video that I made.

I hope you enjoy!

♥

Illustration Friday: Squirrel

This week for Illustration Friday, the word is SQUIRREL.

Illustration Friday, 'Emoji'

I almost didn't want to do this week's Illustration Friday because emojis aren't my usual style but I thought I'd have some fun with it!

Have a great weekend! x

Illustration Tutorial with Posca Pens

As you might have seen from my last post, I've been making paintings in my sketchbook and so I thought I'd share my method with you of my latest one. I've also decided to make it into a new design for the items in my Rebubble shop, which I'll share with you at the end of this post.

So here's how I made my latest sketchbook painting..

 

 First I painted in some random coloured areas of watercolour with a vague house shape in the middle and allowed it to dry.

 I drew the windows to the house with a white Posca pen size 1M and painted them with some more watercolour, yellow ochre which is the same colour that I used for the house.

I added detail to each of the areas of watercolours using a Posca colour that would look nice against each one. You can see on the blue and green areas that I used a darker colour in the same shade. When in doubt, I find that white always works well against a dark background.

I continued to add details treating each area of watercolour almost separately. Towards the end, you have to think of the picture as a whole so I added a few extra details across areas, that helped to knit the areas of colour together until I was happy that the picture looked balanced.

There are no rules and this is only one example of how I've made a painting. Mistakes or changes of mind are easy to do by blocking over anything you're not happy with by using acrylic paint or sticking on a piece of collage paper. Once the acrylic or the paper is dry you can then paint again on top with Posca pens.

So once it was finished I thought it would make a nice design for fabric and on other items like mugs, travel cups, bags and all sorts!

Here are a few examples..

I've got lots more in my Redbubble shop, PLEASE CLICK HERE to see.

Thanks for looking, ♥ ♥ have a lovely weekend! xx 

My Intuitive Artwork and a New Video

 Most mornings when I have time I like to fill a page of my sketchbook with colour.

It's become more of an art journal than a sketchbook because I'm making intuitive images, shapes and colours that come from somewhere that I'm not entirely conscious of when I'm in the process.

For instance, if I feel like I need to see lime green and pink then I make a drawing using it.

I sometime have an idea of making a random background and then layering on top to define areas, like with these leaves above. I then add some more detail to it with pens.

Souffle pens are great for drawing over a dark area. The pigment turns out a lot lighter when it dries.

And then some days I sit back and look at what I've drawn and I wonder, "Why fish?" Maybe it's the influence of the sea!

I've made a short little video of some of my time in early May. I hope you enjoy.xx

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Illustration friday: Pink

Here's this week's painting for Illustration Friday. 

The word is 'Pink.'

I used my pink Poscas on top of a watercolour background. Have a great weekend! xx