Just a couple of fox inkings I’m working on, these are small A5 foxes on different weight papers. Funnily enough I used the same drawing to transfer the images using the light box, but they look quite different. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they turn out once painted.
Nemo by Sea December 2019 Teaser
It’s great to be back in the rhythm of weekly posting and not agonising too much over ‘are the eyes right?’. Here’s a glimpse of some of the good stuff I have posted on my Nemo by Sea Patreon blog this month.
Nemo by Sea Project Announcement
This is a new personal project I’m embarking on where me and my senior dog Nemo actually go outside to see what the local bays have to draw, paint and journal.
What’s different about this project is that other than it being different subject matter, is that I have some neat little rewards at various price points if people choose to support me, if not, it’s just loads of free coastal art to enjoy!
If you’re interested in this idea and want to support me further, please visit me on Patreon. ➤
Cat Scribbles for my Sibling
My sister has been abroad for many years but is coming back to the United Kingdom soon, sadly though having to leave her two scrappy street cats she adopted in Mexico behind for a while.
I thought I’d illustrate her two substitute children as a surprise to tide her over.
I used a variety of different materials to create these paintings, I found that using charcoal and pastel over a watercolour painting created some really great fur texture, along with scribblings of white pen.
Funnily enough, the ‘cuddling’ cats picture was saved from the ‘crap pile’ by my mum, and without her intervention, they would be lost.
I often discard work through pure emotion, as I get easily frustrated if things don’t turn out the way I’d hoped. My mum insists on going through all my recent painting fails when she visits (nosy!), dragged the pair out and made me resee the potential, so I worked on them some more, and now I’m really happy with the result and, more importantly so is my sister — thanks mum!
House Flies
I’m not a fan of summer, it’s hot and there are flies and that’s enough for me to wish for eternal winters, but for those who long for the summer, here’s a reminder to not wish the year away just yet …
Flies are actually quite beautiful up close and I’ve always wanted to paint them. I chose hot pressed watercolour paper this time, I thought the shiny bodies lent itself to a less textural paper, with some crêpe paper for the wings.
Hummingbird Moth
In the summer I was admiring the out of control buddleia population in my garden, and wow, I couldn’t believe we had a hummingbird moth visit! They are so fast and stay perfectly still whilst feeding as their little wings whir like crazy, zipping all over the garden.
I used some tissue in the buddleias to give them a little more texture, and went a bit mental with the Brusho, but with the heavier stock 140lb watercolour paper but I think it looks great. I’m so happy with the painting that I’ve made him available to buy in my shop.
Forgive me for my lapse in posting, I have a more personal project coming up which I can’t wait to announce to you all in a couple of short weeks.
Deer Illustrations
Here are some quick deer illustrations in which tissue features heavily, it’s the usual tissue (Crêpe) paper adhered with Bindex to the watercolour paper which can create these muted, softer tones. I really enjoy using tissue paper, you can achieve some really interesting results depending various factors like wetness, size and how folded or flat the tissue is.
Mystery Toad
I have a notorious section in my studio named the ‘crap pile’, which is where not worthy paintings go straight to the local recycling facilities. Occasionally my mum will visit and save pieces from such a fate. This was one of them.
When you’re so close and spend so much time drawing, transferring, redrawing, inking and then watercolouring you can get so frustrated with the outcome - you just can’t look at it anymore and it has a stay in the famous pile, maybe indefinitely …
This toad made it out of there, I cleaned him up, unbuckled him as the paper was extremely buckled from all the water I threw at him, (I’ll share this technique in future posts) and he now sits flat and beautiful in my shop ready for his new home!
He was made from watercolour and ink with some white pigment, he’s so old I didn’t even get to sprinkle some Brusho on him, a rarity these days!
Meerkats and ‘Semple’ Lions
I was commissioned a very small meerkat painting, and I painted a meerkat in the same pose on different papers, they both look quite different which is interesting. I also picked up Stuart Semples watercolour pan set - and WOW! They really are the colouriest colours!
I was so used to fighting with the dusty pans of Winsor and Newton and resigned myself to using them but Stuart Semple’s watercolour set is almost jell like, really easy to work with and gives such juicy, vibrant colours. I painted these simple but bombastic lions in them. I love Semple’s ethics around selling art materials, his colours are so affordable, he aims to fight against art elitism, how could I not support that with my purchase?
Not sponsored – I just love them!
Relief Inks On Yupo
I’ve longed and pined for a print press, I thought it was the only way I could make lovely work like my ‘Dutchess’ series prints again, wonderful horsies that seem to come so naturally even though it was my first ever experience of printmaking.
I wanted this feeling back so after much experimenting with oils and other inks on Yupo paper, I have a technique which mimics the look of those prints.
I used Indian inks and permanent pen to act as the ‘burr’ of my lovely doggo Nemo, drawn straight onto the yupo, I then slathered on relief inks and removed ink using rags and white spirit and dried the whole thing using a hair dryer.
It’s not the same thing I know, but I thought it was interesting to try out, I used white gouache to lighten a few areas, and I probably won’t do that again when I try this in future.
The Swift and the Fox
I’m really pleased with how my swift came out, the drawing was so simple and I worried I wouldn’t be able to make it look interesting, but with the help of Brusho I much prefer the swift to my fox image. I think because the image of the fox was so much larger (320mm × 410mm), it makes you a little more cautious, which restricts how mad you want to go with the paint. The fox was also made with Brusho and watercolour on 100lb paper.
Inky Kissy Pigeons and Fox
Sometimes paintings just don’t work out - I lose interest and don’t want to redo even with my fantastic Light Pad. I’m going to make of habit of taking posting inks before they get painted. My kissy wood pigeons unfortunately didn’t work out, but my fox is in progress.
The Seagull and the Swallow
The struggle for good white ink continues, a toothpastey nightmare. On the Seagull I used Pebeo Colorex a French ink and for the swallow just Winsor & Newton white gouache, since my Dr. Ph. Martin’s ink dried up through neglect - and I found it difficult to swallow the price since it doesn’t seem to be very shelf stable.
The search for good white ink seems endless! These two birds in addition to sad white pigment were made from Brusho, watercolour and ink with a smidge of charcoal on the gull on 100lb Montval Canson watercolour paper.
March Magpies
March was the month of the magpies according to my garden activity, so I painted a few taking obvious liberties with colour and people eyes, the Brusho came out again! My favourite one is the bluey magpie as I messed with him the least and it’s just a really pretty image in person.
Scrappy Insects
On odd scraps of watercolour paper I decided to paint a few simple insects, mostly in Brusho. As Brusho is pigmented colour dust it doesn’t take very much to make your eyes hurt, in a good way. I’ve used Montval Canson 100lb paper here, it’s pretty thin so buckling and creases sadly is a thing, but I found you can just massage most of them out with your fingers if you have a spare half an hour — it’s a brilliant practice paper otherwise.
Charcoal & Pastel Badger
2013’s Blue Badger attempt using watercolour and Indian Ink only.
I’ve always struggled with badgers, as I felt there wasn’t anything interesting I could do colour-wise with them, but I braved the badger again, this time armed pastels and charcoal alongside my watercolour and Brusho underpainting.
The last and only time I created a badger piece was in 2013, when I had a bit of a problem with circles …
Luckily 2013’s badger found a home so it wasn’t all bad, and I still think he’s interesting to compare against, I guess now I have an orange problem - but it is a nice colour!
Pastel Pigeons
I haven’t played with pastels much, I usually only use them to dust over insect paintings and never really took them seriously.
But I recently brought them out after feeling in a bit of a rut and discovered I really enjoy them! I particularly like the sculptural aspect of them, scoring the paper erratically but also knowing you can remove the colour instantly with a dry paintbrush or rubber. I really love pigeons, they are my favourite animal, so I thought they could spur me onto make something interesting.
Tiny Watercolours
These are tiny little watercolours I’ve done on bits of otherwise unusable watercolour paper. So glad I kept the odds and sods about to paint on, the big head problem is especially noticeable when working on such a small scale which gives me a laugh.
Charcoal Squirrel
Another squirrel with a slight charcoal twist, I liked the fuzziness, especially on the snowy textured watercolour paper which I only use when I’m feeling a bit fancy. I especially love the eyes again, I do spend a lot of time on eyes. The eyes of a painting alone can easily take me 3 hours, probably isn’t all that necessary but I feel like it needs to look right as it is the heart of every painting I do. This squirrel is now available my shop.
Watercolour Beavers
I’ve been working on a project which requires, a large amount of beavers! These are all watercolour and brusho with my usual mix of mediums. My favourite is clearly the first one, but I painted several not knowing which one will be chosen.
The Indian ink style was the one which got selected, and I will post later to not ruin the surprise of how it will look in full watercolour and animated for an exciting Rewilding Project by Ecologist Rob Lewis.
