In Progress - Silent Book Contest

I'm currently working on an entry for another contest:

http://www.silentbookcontest.com/www.silentbookcontest.com/index-2015-ENG.html


The entry has to be a full layout for a picture book without text, which means that my usual approach to planning is not going to cut it. At this point it's going to be 32 pages long (and that's only as of yesterday - it was supposed to only be 24 pages) and I'm up to page 14. So, probably not working on much else for the rest of the year.

New Artwork - Procrasteanation

Most days I make a cup of tea to avoid making difficult decisions about drawings.

New Artwork - Birthday Card

Matt's birthday card featuring our cat, Georgie.

Artwork In Progress - Figure Drawing

I was just about finished Matt's birthday card a few days ago and then I realised that I couldn't post the artwork until after I'd given it to him. So in two weeks, get really excited!

This is a small part of a larger figure drawing that I'm working on at the moment. I still haven't decided exactly what the final image will be like, but at least I've got the hands right.

New Artwork - Border

I still have to go over the lines again but you get the idea. I’ve wanted to use a black, red and blue colour scheme for a while now. Maybe it’s on trend right now, because I feel like I keep seeing it around.

Artwork In Progress - Border

New Artwork - Moon

This was inspired by a painting of the sun that I saw a little while ago:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/salute-the-sun-20130620-2ojtb.html

They turned out quite differently in the end. Mine reminds me of those paintings that you do in primary school with food dye and detergent! I know that I said that I would be posting drafts as well, but I had the idea for this drawing at work and I don’t take a sketchbook to work.  This is a sneaky draft in ballpoint pen that I did on the back of a purchase order (I am not yet at the stage in my drawing career where this sort of thing warrants its own separate post):

Submissions

So, haven’t quite managed to photograph and edit my latest finished artwork yet …

At the moment I’m trying to figure out whether to start making submissions again and, if so, what sort of submissions to work towards. This post-every-two-weeks goal has been good in that I have a lot of new artwork to send out, but I haven’t really spent a lot of time thinking about what I’m going to do with what I’ve made and how it all fits together. Submissions are actually a lot of work, partly be due to the challenge of walking that fine line between confident and annoying in the cover letter but also because it’s quite hard to talk about yourself as a professional illustrator without having really done much freelance work. I used the word “emerging” last time I did a bunch of submissions, but there may be a limit to how long you can be in the process of emerging. By now I might be “emerged, but not very busy”. Anyway, I’m sure that there’s a very good word that sits halfway between emerged and established without being too wanky.

New Artwork - CYA Conference Illustration Competition Entry

I recently found out that I came third in an illustration competition.  The best thing about this particular competition is that everyone who enters gets written feedback (which should arrive in a few weeks). I entered last year and didn’t do very well, and without the feedback I probably would have just flipped a table and not bothered this year. 

http://www.cyaconference.com/news--updates/

New Artwork - Jumping Fish

Artwork(s) In Progress

These are line drawings of a bunch of different fabric textures. I was thinking about incorporating them into another drawing to add a bit more detail to clothing, but I haven't decided exactly what to do yet. 

To be honest, I've really just been scribbling for the past fortnight or so. Next week I'm hoping to get started on this one properly:

New Artwork - Sheep

New Artwork - Autumn Wreath

Two in a row. All right!

New Artwork - Cover Art

Finally finished! I'm still working on the rest of the layout.

Artwork In Progress - Cover Art

I’m currently working on a commissioned artwork. Without giving too much away, it’s for the cover a self-published science fiction novel (I’m not clear on what the etiquette is when talking about someone else’s work). 

Even as I write about having being commissioned I’m thinking of my dad saying, “Self-praise is no recommendation”, because it’s a certain sort of person who goes on and on about how successful they are on social media, and I have been known to bag people like that out (which may be the understatement of the century). I wasn’t going to mention it at all except that it’s the only artwork that I’ve been doing for the past three weeks, so it’s this or nothing.

So, I was doing some sketches while I was trying to figure out what to do exactly and I ended up with a figure drawing that turned out well enough to use except that it was way too small:

I used a scanner to make a digital copy, blew that up a few times and posterised it:

Right now I’m redrawing the black sections of the image as a circuit board pattern by hand, which turned out to be a lot trickier than I’d expected. ALL of the lines have be perfectly straight and parallel. ALL OF THEM. I guess that anything worth doing is tricky.