Jessie Lilac Blog

Some doodles, then a picture with the full moon followed... I find it impossible to capture the same feeling from the original drawing. I thought a way around this might be to only sketch on the final paper that will end up as the painting, with the chance of ruining the surface of the paper through rubbings out and changes. In the sketch, the girl looks much more relaxed and I've just looked again at the painting above and realised I've forgotten to draw her other hand. I think that full moon is affecting me even though it's not real!

I knew I wanted to have some sort of animal in my picture for Illustration Friday, so made a page of sketches until I came up with the idea of this. It's not human or animal, somewhere in between I think. Click on the picture above to see it larger.

It takes me ages some mornings to get going with drawing and this morning is one of those! I want to draw animals of some kind, with the Illustration Friday topic in mind. I'll look in the children's book of baby animals for inspiration and see what happens. See you here later!

I see blackbirds in the garden most days, and today, I thought for a change I would do a sketch in purely watercolour for my doodle-a-day. I love the way watercolour puddles and leaves tide marks. The sketch above is closest to how I painted it, but the image below shows what I was really after, the darkness. I took the original and made it darker on the computer.

This was an experiment to use coloured pencils over watercolour wash. I had to wait for the paint to dry before I could shade in with the pencil and nearly ruined the paper in my impatience. Why he ended up looking scared witless is anyone's guess! A doodle I did in red biro while on the phone, that I thought I'd post for my Doodle-a-day. The conversation was about hanging pictures (but not roses!) They must have still been on my mind from drawing that wedding dress!

We rented a lovely film last night called SEACHD: The Inaccessible Pinnacle . I remembered reading about it on Rima's blog a few months ago. Thankyou Rima!x It's in gaelic with english subtitles which can be a bit daunting at first but before I knew it, I was instantly drawn into the land of storytelling. I'd highly recommend it! Yesterday I finished the Wedding Invitation. Thankfully they've seen it and liked it, so I'm very pleased!

A doodle-a-day and draw what you may.

Here's the stage I'm at today with the wedding invitation design. They want it to be really colourful and what with the dress being white and the suit being grey, I'm going to have to be extremely inventive with the rest of it! I'm still doing my doodle-a-day and here is today's... I think they might be extra wedding guests that were secretly invited by someone small and fluffy.

If you are familiar with how I paint, then you'll realise 'Pale' is a new concept for me! I used very diluted watercolour without too much shadow, well just a little bit. I've got to tell you it was hard for me to stop and leave it wishy washy but I did and here it is.

Here is today's warm-up sketch, back to the wedding invitation but getting closer to what they want now. I'll post the finished piece when it's ready - top hat and all!

I absolutely lOve buying new colours and trying them out. Up until now I've always mixed colours if I needed to make orange or light green, getting through an awful lot of yellow in the process. You can bet there'll be plenty of orange and light green in the coming posts! I'm thinking about hens and not frogs today...

I did this one in a similar way to yesterday's post. I started out with a quick sketch of a frog's head and decided to add to it on and off for most of the day to see what evolved. Each layer of watercolour had to be left to dry before I could add more detail, which gave me chance to decide what I'd do next. The trick is of course to know when to stop because as you know watercolour can look overworked and heavy if you're not careful. My usual thing at this stage is to add lines with a dip pen but as there are enough layers to give it weight, I quite liked it without.

(Click on picture if you'd like to see it bigger.) It's only a week since I started a 'Doodle-a-day' and it's had a huge influence on the way I'm working. This one started out as a random doodle on the page of a sketchbook and as I was drawing I was thinking about what I said in the post yesterday about not spending enough time on a painting or drawing. Thankyou all who contributed to yesterday's post, I so enjoyed learning how you set about making your artwork! :). I made a quick drawing of the girl, then thought I'd add another character. (Why it turned out to be a frog I'll never know!) Next came the background, something I rarely do, I think it might be a weakness of mine. It lasted longer than my usual few minutes and I found it quite relaxing and satisfying all at the same time. I'm going to do this again and try to take even longer!

These were all done really quickly and probably took longer to scan and save than to draw! I'm beginning to doubt my ability to concentrate for long periods of time. I really admire artists who spend a long time on their artwork, refining it and therefore ending up with an equisite piece of work. I'd like to do that but after many years of having small children around, I'm still in the habit of rushing to finish all the time. I need to retrain myself to have more patience and to accept that it's possible for a piece to take longer to make. How do you like to work?

I enjoyed drawing yesterday's cat, so here's another. (Click on each picture if you'd like to see it bigger)

I'm still in the dancing theme, seeing where it goes.

Magical Thing 1. You'll never guess...the Fairy God Mother 's spell from yesterday's post worked! After a freezing evening and night I leapt quickly out of bed to get dressed before the shock of the cold air got to me, ran downstairs and to my surprise noticed the radiators were working - hurray! I've no idea why or how but the JOY of having heating is unbelievable. It's amazing how much we take for granted isn't it? (I keep checking them to see if they're tricking me and go cold again!) Magical Thing 2. On this happy note, I read on Alicia's blog this morning that she's starting a 'Doodle a Day' . This couldn't have come at a better time for me. From monday to friday, the idea is to doodle, scan and post every day, a daily sketch to warm up. After each school break I find it so difficult to get back into the swing of drawing and being creative. Our school went back yesterday so the timing is perfect! (See above for my first one.)

It's soooooooo cooooooooold!!!!!!! I'm sat here, wrapped in a blanket because our central heating decided to pack up in the night. I've painted a Fairy God Mother to make a spell to fix it..... ...well I'm no engineer!

I resolve to go to a yoga class regularly this year. I used to be able to do this with my legs but age and time have crept up on me! Doesn't stop me from trying though does it?