Illustration and Design Blog

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Animal Character Illustration

Another challenge set by Lisa Bardot's Character camp was to create unique animal characters.

Here a few that I came up with.

Mr Bear was always a complete gentleman and a delight to happen upon. 

Meet Captain Douglas, a most courageous spitfire flying duck. 

Mr and Mr Mouse were this years pearly king and queen of the gutter.

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Character Camp Illustrations

One of the great things about sharing and learning with other creatives in online communities is you discover new stuff. Whilst taking a SkillShare class I encountered Bardot Brushes. Beautifully designed Procreate brushes, very reasonably priced, created by illustrator Lisa Bardot.

https://bardotbrush.com/

Along with a great selection of brushes Lisa's site has some amazing resources, including tutorials, prompts and motivational information to encourage daily art-making practices.  

Whilst I already draw every day, I'm often in a quandary about what to create and sometimes struggle with using my imagination. So Lisa's kind of encouragement and inspiration is just what I could do with now and then.

Character Camp is a selection of illustration classes on creating unique characters. I decided to follow along and create my own character.

Max is an 11 year old skater boy who loves rock music and card tricks.

Before creating the character Lisa's process begins with drawing the character's clothing and accessories. This is a brilliant technique, it really helped me form a solid visual look and identify his personality traits. And is a great reference when you go on to draw your character in different scenes. 

The camp class then challenged you to stage your character with different emotional expressions.

Max is scare because the ride is so old and rickety. 

Max is furious that someone has taken a bite out of his sandwich. 

 Max is sad because he keeps falling when he attempts to drop-in off the skate ramp. 

I learnt loads of new tips and tricks following along with all the Character Camp tutorials and would highly recommend them to anyone who wants to improve their illustrated characters. 

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Shelter Dogs Prints

I am a  patron of an animal rescue centre based on the Greek island of Crete. Takis Shelter was founded 4 years ago by a local DJ Theoklitos Proestakis. Using his own funds he created a safe refuge for stray and abandoned animals.

The work he and his volunteers do is truly amazing. I was inspired to offer more help than just my monthly donation, so asked if they'd like any artwork created free of charge.

They have been considering selling merchandise to generate more income. Taking care of nearly 200 animals is very costly. Without patron donations they would struggle to stay open.

Here are a couple of designs I've created.

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My Nuts..!

I’m still getting to grips with Procreate, so when ever I’m not doing client work I try and learn something new by taking part in Skillshare classes.

The latest was ‘Illustrating in Procreate: Draw a fox!’ by Mel Armstrong.

Mel walks the viewer through her digital painting process for creating a stylised fox character in Procreate.

Having recently drawn some foxes for another project I improvised on the subject matter. I like to regularly walk around the local in-a-city nature reserve and last autumn stopped to watch a pair of squabbling squirrels. They seemed to be arguing over a pile of fallen acorns. The comical exchange had me giggling to myself most of the day. And was the inspiration behind this cheeky little character.

I’m new to using so much texture so this class took me somewhat out of my comfort zone. However, it was enormous fun experimenting with the different brushes and I learned some great new tips and tricks for using the program too. All in all a fab class and a lovely introduction to using texture.

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Dressing-Up

I really enjoy drawing characters and wanted to have a go using Procreate. Inspired by cool fancy dress outfits I sketched out my idea first. 

Then outlined it, making sure each line was connected to the last so I could use the fill-colour feature in Procreate. 

Here is the final piece. I use flat blocks of colour inside the line work and added shaded detail on a new layer at the end. Finishing it off with a contrasting background to really make them pop. 

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Portrait Illustration

In an attempt to learn Procreate I've been taking a few SkillShare classes. As a visual thinker I find watching another artist's process more informative than just a how-to-use guide.

'Illustrating Expressive Portraits in Procreate' by Maia Faddoul

The class project asks you to chose someone you find inspiring to paint a digital portrait of.

Vivienne Westwood is someone I've always admired. Not only for her amazing fashion designs but her risk-taking. She is not afraid to say what she thinks or use her position to speak out against injustice. 

Her style is so bold and expressive. Very daring and avant-garde, with appreciative nods to historical fashion that I find fascinating.

The first task was to create an inspirational mood board.

And then sketch out our portrait to be used later as a guide for painting. 

This is my final piece. I used the Procreate calligraphy chalk brush in varying sizes to paint. Inspired by Westwood's use of bold shape and line, I went for a funky asymmetric background in a dark colour to create a bold contrast to her bright orange hair.

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Doughnut Disturb

The one thing I quickly learnt about watercolour is, you need a plan. Colours must be chosen in advance, as the paint needs to be wet and ready to apply. The light direction has to be determined, so highlighted areas are not painted and will show in the finished artwork. And time needs to be set aside for the paint to dry between applications. When working digitally, colours and highlights are something I experiment with. And changes are instant. Sometimes I start a piece I’ve sketched with no idea of the colour palette. There are no do-overs with watercolour, what you put down, stays down. No ‘control z’ if you make a mistake. 

Trying to master chocolate, experimenting with different colour browns in today’s watercolour illustration. 

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Chocolate with Everything

I probably eat chocolate four, five times a week. Wow! I hear the health conscious cry, that can't be good. And it's probably not. However, a study in the Journal of Nutrition found that regularly eating small amounts of chocolate could actually reduce the risks of heart disease. Well, if that’s not a good enough excuse I don’t know what is. Just need to take on board ‘small amounts’ and I’ll be fit as a fiddle. If only!

Here’s my attempt at watercolour chocolate cakes.

I found it challenging to produce a smooth finish on the chocolate, both the matt and gloss versions. Although I am rather pleased with how cookie and brownie turned out. Almost good enough to eat.

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Tea Break

I am not the biggest fan of biscuits, they are too dry for my particular palette. However, add a cup of tea and things change. Dunking biscuits in hot tea is a sweet British treat. Judging when the biscuit has retained enough liquid to be soft, yet not so much that you lose haft to the teacup, is as much of a delight as eating the biscuit itself. 

I find it difficult to trust the watercolour paint. I'm not used to having to wait for the results, so have a tendency to over glaze. 

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All Butter and No Waistline

I have the sweetest tooth and continental pastries are a particular vice. Living close to three stores that sell fresh baked goods is precarious for my waistline. I can't resist their wondrous variety of fillings and topping. And the way their buttery pastry melts in my mouth. Hmmm yum yum. 

I used a different watercolour technique, called glazing, to paint these delicious pastries. Starting with a light all over base colour. Leaving some areas completely paint free, that would later work as the objects highlights. Once dry I went over with the same shade to create volume. Finally adding detail with more colours once the second layer of paint was dry.

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Watercolours

Continuing on the theme of a daily art practise, I have been playing around some more with watercolour paints. 

Having enjoyed illustrating food almost as much as eating it, it seemed logical to persist with it as my subject matter. 

My mother is French, which meant coffee was an essential part of everyday life as I grew up. Whenever we visited France breakfast was round the table, often outside, sharing fresh bread, croissants and homemade fruit preserves. All washed down with large bowls of coffee for the adults and hot chocolate for the children. Today even the slightest waft of brewing coffee beans and I'm transported back in time instantly.

I used the wet on wet technique to paint these coffees and their accompaniments, as it can produced some really interesting colour mixes. Wetting the paper first, painting the subject with clear water, then adding the wet paint on top. 

It wasn't as easy to reproduce the wet on wet success of the previous illustration in these upright coffees. The paint mixed beautifully as it gathered in the circle shapes, but vertically....not so much. It’s in these instances where I miss the controllability of digital painting. Adobe Illustrator’s gradient tool kept popping in to my mind as I struggled with producing a gradient using watercolours. 

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Back to Basics

I can’t actually remember the last time I used any traditional mediums. Apart from sketching with pencils and creating ink textures to use in photoshop. And sometimes wonder if my endless strive for perfection is a derivative of this. The temptation to edit is too irresistible.

I wanted to get back to basics and needed to move away from the screen for a while. So I took a Skillshare class by watercolour illustrator and surface designer Ohn Mar Win.

Sketchbook Practise: Grow your art everyday.

The class encourages you to start a daily sketchbook practise. Creating a safe place to experiment and grow. To improve your skill and develop your own style without purpose or judgement. Somewhere just for you and your own creative advancement.

Day 1

Here’s my first attempt with real watercolours. As a younger artist (before Adobe) I always painted with Acrylic. It dried so quickly and layered so easily I felt in control. Watercolour meant risk, no room for error….so I stayed well away.

Day 2

I’m starting to understand how the watercolour paint lays on the paper in this second attempt.

Day 3

Experimenting with tone and shade with these limes. Finding it a little tricky to keep that transparent quality. 

Day 4

Trying to add contrast to these oranges by playing around with watercolour pens.

Day 5

Feeling so much more confident with the paint already. A daily painting practice is really going to improve my skill level. This class is definitely what the soul doctor ordered, I quite like these lemons!

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I recently took a Skillshare class by picture book illustrator Nina Rycroft. Exploring the nine different face shapes and how to draw them.

Drawing the faces of characters has always been a challenge. Fear and trepidation sets in and familiarity takes over, compelling my pencil to sketch shapes and features I’ve previously used. Resulting in a collection of characters who look like they could be related. Not ideal…!

Here are the results of the class project. 

Kite shaped faces

Heart shaped faces

Rectangle shaped faces

Oval shaped faces

Square shaped faces

Teardrop shaped faces

Heptagon shaped faces

Oblong shaped faces

Playing around some more I added colour to all the characters using Photoshop watercolour brushes.

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Active Animals Illustrated Alphabet

Everywhere I look these days children are staring at screens. How times have changed, when my twin boys where young I spent much of the time wearing them out doing various physical activities, no matter the weather. Screens where limited to a only a couple of hours a day.

As they grew so did their appetite for new experiences and with it a curiosity of all things active. With each new school year came the desire to try something new. As a single parent keeping up with the monetary costs and the demands on time was often a struggle. There was never enough time in the day or coins in the pot.

Thankfully I have had the love and support of a great mother, who made keeping up with such challenges possible. And the benefits have long outweighed the costs. For with this inclination to be active, came an eagerness to explore. To discover and investigate, to question and to enquire.

Now in their twenties my twins still adore new experiences. They appreciate the importance of trying something new. Whether that be an new activity, a new destination, a new recipe or a new encounter, they relish the opportunity to expand on this adventure we call life. I wish I was more like them….!

With these thoughts in mind I wanted to encourage children to be active. And when better than to start, than at the beginning. This active animal alphabet could help stimulate a healthy interest of activity from an early age.

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I have been watching Adobe Live illustration sessions on Behance and was lucky enough to win an Illustrator cushion. 

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‘Clouds over No Mans Lans’ animated gif

This is my first attempt at creating an animated gif using Photoshop. 

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Too scared to sleep alone, all I can hear is the monster's terrifying groan.