It's alive !

So, in case you're wondering where I've been, I did finally manage to kill my beloved xp machine. Happily, that didn't impact my business too much as I have a tablet but since that didn't want to talk to Blogger, not even a little bit, I've been locked out. This means we have quite a bit to catch up on but let's start with this years most fun news.

Murder exhibition crow display

 After a mistake filming the drawing of one of my crows, I wound up with a matched pair following take 2. This got me thinking and I decided to see what a whole flock would look like. One Kickstarter later, 20 crows had pre sold and the game was on.

Limited edition Murder crow with certificate

The lovely chaps at Dillons of Whitby offered me the use of their beautiful breakfast room for a pop up show earlier this month. Supplied with wine and canapes we entertained a happy room of people also curious to see what a murder of the same crow looked like. Three crows from the exhibition were chosen for limited edition prints and sketchbooks.

Limited edition prints and sketchbooks

Those crows sponsored by the purchase of printed rewards are to be auctioned for Whitby Wildife Sanctuary. There are a very limited number of originals and printed specials still available to buy - you can bag one on my UK website or in my Etsy shop. When all the pieces sold have been shipped out, I'm building a virtual version of the exhibition on my website, more on that to follow.

Back In Black

Well, hello :) It's been a while - lots going on behind the scenes here so we have some catching up to do. How are you doing ? Good I hope.

Probably the biggest single thing that's changed is my UK website, I started over with Wix and have been able to add lots more features so the site is now a proper studio tour.

 From the beginning I wanted to make more of a connection between you the viewer seeing the artwork and me making it so that's one of my front paws right there on the home page :)

Stephen now has his own corner of the website - as his file continues to grow with contributions from other talented creatives and fans, I wanted somewhere to share and showcase new elements as they are added. If you'd like to play along, go see.

I've built up a complete collection of my crow drawings and added a new line in printed loveliness. Pocket mirrors, notebooks and prints are now available to buy here. I have more designs and products coming over the next few months.

Black birds

 Those of you who keep patiently reading my posts will know just how many crow pictures I've been getting through lately. I'm still enjoying them, it's nice when time is tight to have something I can do start to finish in a relatively short time. 

 However, I also wanted to get some new pieces up in the shop to keep them company. Since we moved to Whitby, I've become fascinated with the cormorants that sit out in the harbour. I wanted to see if I could produce similar images with them, on a slightly larger scale.

These stand at just 6" x 4", done in the same charcoal pencil on Fabriano Artistico paper. There's enough detail to give them life while keeping that stark black outline. I've put the first pair up in my Etsy shop thanks to some rather pleasing photos taken on my new camera - more of that in the next post :)

Flying out of the door

 I recently showed my work at the Dark Arts exhibition here in Whitby. I sold a couple of crows as expected - they're a nice size for presents - and thought I should print off some more photos to work from so I could restock my Etsy shop. 

jackdaw charcoal drawing

 At which point, someone found my shop and bought a couple for their new home. Another customer came along and swiped a pair for themselves. I dug out all the paper I had and got stuck in.

crow drawing in progress

The first Etsy buyer then came back to say they'd spotted a couple in my sold listings and could I redo them ? No problem I said and added those two to the pile. I caught up and listed another two new ones...which promptly sold. Followed by another two :)

 

 

 

crow pencil drawing

By the end of the second week, I had one crow left in stock and ran out of paper ! So, guess what I'm doing this week - crows anyone ?

Carbonised

 Following on from my last post, here's the first of my carbon and charcoal experiments.

 

I've worked with both kinds of pencil before but never as two distinct elements in the same image - which is why I started with the small version :)

I used carbon pencil for the cat in the foreground to give me a soft black and the fuzzy edges. One of the things I liked about the photograph I was working from was the fact it was the crows in the background that were in sharp focus.

I used sharp charcoal for the wonderfully distinctive crows so that even on such a tiny scale- the whole thing is only 3 x 4 inches- I could get a really crisp outline and feather texture. This one is already on sale here -next up, I'm trying a larger version using the same materials. Will keep you posted ;)

Cat amongst the....

...crows in this case :) While I'm still settling into my new pad here in Scarborough I've pulled out some of my favourite photos to work on. That had to include this glorious out-take from last years crow sessions.

I'm thinking of using my new favourite pencils, Wolffs carbon, for the cat as it is a fantastic velvety black and slightly softer so it should give me the fuzzy focus I'm after. The crows will be picked out in charcoal to give a harder edge and, believe it or not, a different kind of black :)

I'm also tempted to do this in two sizes- 3 x 4" and 6 x 8" partly because I like working in miniature and partly because I think a smaller version would work well with the exisiting crow drawings already on sale in my Etsy store.

I'm hoping to be working on this at the weekend- will keep you posted :)