Fineliner and Watercolour Mouse

Another simple fineliner and watercolour fusion, this time pulling inspiration from a small brown mouse.

In this piece I have introduced more watercolour pigment amidst the greyish fineliner, which when water is introduced kicks up these clouds of murky colour.

I’m really enjoying the spontaneity of the fineliner pen. After the watery clouds dried overnight, I went in with Indian ink and white pigment to define certain areas like the head and whiskers trying not to over do it! This colourful mouse now inhabits my shop.

Fineliner Peacock

Just a simple illustration I put together experimenting with adding watercolour to a fineliner painting. The ink in the fineliner and the watercolour pigment react creating an interesting cloud seen in the top right hand corner.

Despite the different hues of blue, I stuck to Phthalo blue only. But water and the fineliner soon created lots of interesting blues for me. Once the piece was dry I added and outlined my peacock with Indian ink and white pigment, this painting is also available in my shop!

Bleary Hare

Since looking at Alexis Marcou’s work, I decided to make some monochrome work of my own.

Pulling more inspiration from our rabbity friends, I bled them using fineliners. I drew the image in pencil then drew over them with fineliner and added water to create this bleary imagery.

What I like about this technique is that it takes no time at all to create something interesting. With a little more manipulation and mastery who knows what striking beasts may emerge?

This particular piece is for sale in my shop!

Robin Commission

I have finally moved out of my home town of Mitcham over Christmas and now proudly claim Birchington-on-Sea as my new home! Amidst the moving chaos I was able to tend to a commission piece of a Robin.

Going for the layers this time I propped up the picture at an angle so that any paint I applied slowly rolled off creating faint, translucent trails which I like, I think I will experiment more with drips and less with straws.

Winter “Welly”

This watercolour and ink painting was a commission from a friend who has asked and asked and asked for a picture of her beloved British blue “Welly” who is a lovely boy, but getting on. I often shy away as it’s quite a bit of pressure with pet commissions and I’m terrified the painting won't resemble peoples pets at all!

But it does, and my friend and her family were thrilled with this homage to their Welly, which is great!

Quick Fish Studies

Here are some quick studies of fish for this week, I thought the continuous-line drawing would be a little more challenging on fish as there aren’t so many face details to work with. I found that you can get a surprising range of expression and interesting body structure into your fish studies using this type of drawing.

Emerging Seahorse

During this painting I realised that perhaps flicking spots of paint about isn't as interesting as I thought it was, it just makes the painting look a mess, a mess you can't easily mop up. I wanted the sea horse to unveil through a tangle of reeds but I got a bit scared and started flicking paint around instead of creating some considered shapes. I'll get there eventually.

This painting was made in watercolour, ink, and white pen.

November Polar Bear

This really isn’t my best but I wanted to play with white a little more and what better subject matter than a Polar Bear. I wanted to test myself to see if I could bring out defining features on a completely white animal — more practice needed. Brought to you in ink, watercolour, white pigment and straws!

Messy Siberian Tiger

I experimented with carbon transfer paper for this piece. Slipping carbon paper under the original hand-drawn image, then redrawing over the image is so much easier as it leaves a bold copy of the drawing behind on the watercolour paper. Also carbon doesn’t dissolve away when water is added, so no need for ink! This image was brought to you by that wonderful carbon paper, watercolour, white pen and ink.

Elderly Continuous-Line Drawing

So I thought I’d attempt some scary subject matter — a human face! This continuous-line drawing was brought to you in 4b pencil and in 15 minutes.

Wrinkled Toucan

Initial painting which in hindsight I was happy with.

Here's a quick painting that I've been agonising over. I replaced the flamboyancy in my initial painting and used Indian and white ink to strip it out entirely. I'm not sure which outcome I prefer, I think I liked my warm inviting toucan painting but succumbed to frustration from staring at it for too long, getting sick of it then throwing ink at it in retaliation. It rarely works out …

The final outcome, a result of frustration.

Late September Squirrels

Very late September squirrels, I took out my new favourite grade pencil the 4B and began sketching the chunky grey squirrels in a local park. These particular squirrels have no fear of humans and would think nothing of chasing you down or catapulting themselves from fences onto your body to bully you out of your private stash of monkey nuts.

Blue Budgerigar

I was asked to paint a budgie for my grandparents as it is their diamond wedding anniversary and they own a pet blue budgie named Joey.

I did something a little different with my painting to pattern the darker blue areas. I did this by pressing into and shaping cling film whilst it lay on the wet watercolour pigment and I really like the effect after it had dried!

This budgie was made from inks, watercolour, white pen, salt and sugar.

“Shame” Cat Commission

As you can see, I’ve been quite busy! Meet my newest watercolour painting, who was born from my client’s love of the film Shame and the actor Michael Fassbender.

I had to incorporate the sullenness and melancholy which were important themes throughout the film and also incorporate my client’s love of cats.

But, as you can see, it took five other developed paintings before I had a piece worthy of my client’s eyes. The trouble with me is that I get so wrapped up in the work of my favourite artists I end up with a higgledy-piggledy styled mess in a futile attempt to try and mimic how they would have interpreted the brief.

I’ve included the other attempts to try and put the pressure off other inspiring artists as it does take a while to produce a piece of good quality, you will produce utter rubbish and here’s the proof — but persistence pays off.

My sixth painting was just me, in a room with a palette of watercolours, and the reference image, putting all other creative influence aside and I developed a piece which my client is very happy with … and so am I!

Coffee Experiments and More!

Look at these coffee stains, interesting right? Manipulated with watercolour and inks they may make some unique artwork in the future which I will be implementing right away.

I crumbled in some sugar and coffee granules which enhanced the textures further. I’ve also included some more familiar drawings of animals I did recently.

15-Minute Puma Sketch

Before I ran off to work I found an image of a puma, and sketched it quickly using a 4B pencil, the most effective use of fifteen minutes in my whole week sadly. This image was sketched on recycled paper.

Framed Froggy

I’ve been practising trying to paint smaller which hasn’t been going too well, but I did manage a little grubby frog which I framed and he looks pretty content sitting in there. Painted using watercolour, ink and white pen, A5 in size.

Pelican Paintings

It’s been a slow week of progress but I did manage to get painterly with some pelicans. I’m not terribly pleased with them, I have too many colours going on and the choice of palette isn’t terribly focused.

I feel the drawing underneath is always much more interesting than the finished watercolour, and through the layers of paint I lose that detail which is horribly frustrating.

The Making of the Masking Tape Hare

I thought I’d show you the more interesting stages of a luminous masking tape beastie, using masking tape I secure rolled up tubes to a carrier bag base until I have a rough skeleton, then the cutting and shaping of hundreds of sticky tubes takes place. I always think a work in progress is much more interesting half way finished than the final version especially in sculpture.

Pacific Octopus

It’s been a while since tentacles have made an appearance, plus it’s been far too cute on here recently so I decided to paint a pacific octopus. Using watercolour, ink and white pen I found a lovely giant Pacific octopus by photographer Lyrinda Snyderman.

One of the many continuous-line drawings I do before I start a painting.

I know this is a bit late in the day, but I actually tried out the advice that water colourists all over the internet had been screaming this whole time — wet your paper before you paint! I was sceptic that this would make any difference but through a few experiments, wetting your paper and allowing it to dry before applying paint meant no paper buckling, which is fantastic, no more weird looking bent up paintings, hoorah!