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 box

 I've discovered a new toy :) Or rather, a new technique. If you read my last post you'll remember that I photographed something in a black mirror before drawing it. The results were fantastic so I've pretty much spent all my free time since stuffing things into the felt lined box I created to go with it and snapping away.

 There is a bit of an art to it - to photograph a reflection, you have to adjust your focus to cover the distance from your lens to the mirror - and back again. Then of course there's the issue of lighting the object without shining light on the mirror or towards the camera.

 The results are worth it though - I started with a deer skull and took two photographs of its reflection using different lighting. That completely transformed it as you can see from the resulting drawings here - they don't look like the same object in both at all.

I then drew the images out on Fabriano Artistico paper using charcoal pencil for the details and pure carbon stick to get that gorgeous velvety black background. You can buy the drawings framed and ready to go over in my Etsy shop.

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 ?

Meet the monsters :)

It's all go here as I prepare Stephen for his first public appearance at the Dark Arts exhibition in Whitby. The show runs from October 24th-26th at the Spa Pavilion, free entry so do come along and say hello if you're in the area.

I've not taken my nightmares out in daylight before, so it will be interesting to see how folks react up close and personal. It's fantastic having a show like this on our doorstep, though a little nerve wracking allowing strangers access to such personal pieces.

I've got some prints and of course the original drawings but I'm also prepping some pages revealing Stephens history and showing some of the research/prep work that goes into creating something like him.

I may even take along sketchbook and pencils so I can do some drawing while I'm there, so long as the organisers don't mind black fingerprints everywhere :) 

Spicing things up

 It's all going very well in my new drawing corner (see last weeks post). I've now finished the drawing of the half a dried lime I was working on and it's up on Original Art under 100

 This was a particularly fiddly piece to do as the drawn area is only a few centimetres across but I'm pleased with the end result. As usual, it's worked in charcoal pencil on Fabriano Artistico paper which is perfect for that level of detail.

 It's now joined the nutmeg and star anise which are part of the same series. I have another image lined up of a black cardomom pod which I'm hoping to start by the weekend.

Again, I'll be posting pictures of the work in progress or, if you can't wait that long treat yourself to some original art for sale in my Etsy shop :)

Home is where the art is

 In case you've been wondering what I'm up to (always suspicious when artists are quiet), I moved house just over a week ago to the lovely Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast.

 There were several reasons for this but the main benefit from a creative point of view is the amazing location - lots of places to go walking and a great atmosphere.

The setup in this flat is different - I'm now working in a corner of our lounge so I've taken over one of our computer desks to make best use of the space, with halogen lights to compensate for the lower lighting.

It must be doing me good too - I'm already working on a new piece, the next in my series of spice sketches. This one is a dried lime cut in half - fiddly but with some fantastic lines and intense contrast. Like the others, when completed it will be framed in a 6" oak frame and put up for sale in my Etsy shop.

High society

Well, we've been busy. Recent changes to Etsy have meant we are now able to use print on demand services to create all kinds of fun things using our artwork and photographs.

We joined Society6 and now have our own shop over there which is serving as a gallery shop featuring all our works under one roof ! It has other benefits too - we're in the UK but most of our work goes to customers in the USA. Fine for originals which are worth the shipping costs but not so handy when someone is looking for a birthday card or a small print to fill a space in their wall. 

It has been so easy to use and frankly a lot of fun watching our designs turn into everything from cushions to mugs, it's got my partner Rich drawing again - in fact our first sale over there has been a t-shirt featuring his giant horde print on the clock above :)

Remember our puppets ? Well, funny bunnies are taking over as well, we're hoping to get some more photos done this week. They are so expressive and a joy to photograph so we had to include them too !

It's also meant that artwork which has been sold is now available as prints too which is very satisfying :)

Nutmeg

 This weeks post is another from the series of small spice drawings I've done for my Etsy shop.

 This drawing was done in charcoal pencil on Fabriano Artistico watercolour paper. I love its smooth, bright surface- perfect for such detailed work.

 Rich very kindly polished up a nutmeg for me to bring out the grain and took some photos for me to work from. This was an interesting object to draw- such strong lines yet the rounded shape required subtle blending too.

 I'm actually very happy with the final piece and looking forward to the next one- a cut dried lime :)

Wreckage

Saltwick bay photograph

I'm now around two thirds of the way through my first drawing of Saltwick Bay here in North Yorkshire. It started with a couple of snaps I'd taken while on holiday - I hadn't expected much from them because I didn't want to interrupt our time off by getting all artsy with the camera. When I got back, I looked at the one above and decided I could do something with it.

Hour 4 of my wreck and rock drawing

 As usual I'm working on Fabriano Artistico extra white - a lovely smooth paper great for getting sharp lines. I normally work in charcoal pencil but since the wreck cast a shadow you could almost reach out and touch, I needed something even blacker than that !

Hour  9 of my wreck and rock drawing

So, it's out with the Wolffs carbon pencil again - I love these because they produce such a rich, velvety black but unfortunately they also produce an amazing amount of fine dust that sticks to everything...

I'm also still using charcoal pencil for very fine detail, it's harder and can be sharpened to a needle point so I'm tracing the outlines with that, filling in with carbon and blending it up to the edge. That way I've got a lovely crisp silhouette with the added impact of the carbon. I'm hoping to have this one done in the next week or two as I'm keen to get stuck into its mate - a view of the imposing rock formation in the background. Will keep you posted :)

Eyeing up

There's great excitement here as we the launch of the Forgotten project- a joint venture between myself and Caroline Willmot looking at the mythological creatures of Britain. This has been a huge amount of fun to do as it's given me free reign to dismantle those creatures and rebuild in a way that works. 

The really fascinating thing is that when we started looking at all this from a scientific point of view - location, distribution, feeding and mating habits then building the anatomy - so many of these fantastic creatures suddenly became much more plausable. So, throw out everything you thought you knew about mermaids, fairies and goblins because they just got real !

 This drawing of a mermaids eye complete with protective membrane was done in charcoal and carbon pencil on Fabriano watercolour paper. It was a challenge to do as the face shape and skin texture are different to ours- they also have no hair. I could go on for hours but that's what the projects is for so you'll have to wait :)

We will be publishing this project in stages- one paper for each creature, which will be available from my Etsy shop. It's such a mammoth project that we decided each species deserved its own turn in the spotlight. 

We also need to say a huge thank you to my partner Rich for his imaginative input (many a happy hour spent discussing critters over a glass of wine or three). You can follow regular updates on Facebook.

Making my dream a reality

 Here in the studio it's grow-your-own-monster time again. Stephen is ready for his next drawing which means digging out all my original reference materials and sourcing any additional bits I might be needing. The first drawing I did of him was my usual side on shot with no background. These are like the studies of animals and plants in journals, giving a clear view of the whole thing.

 From there, it's about bringing him to life so everyone can see him the way I do- moving about, doing his own thing.... 

 Happily, this time I have a scale model of Stephen to help me figure out things like perspective and play with light sources. All of my monsters start out life in my red sketchbook.

 Once I've got an idea of who I'm drawing and what they're up to, I look up all of the bits of anatomy I'm going to need to make sure that what I'm doing is actually possible - one of my main rules is that each creature must function. They may have supernatural aspects such as Stephens' ability to misdirect but that's no excuse for my being sloppy and getting his shoulders in the wrong place :)

With my current drawing, I started by using my original layout for him which is a simple straight line drawing to scale of all the important bits- head, torso, limbs. Using the photo of my model in a similar position, I made adjustments for our imaginary camera angle. Then it's starting with his skeleton to position everything correctly.

That's important because that affects what muscles are working and so the surface appearance. The muscles are noted on an additional layer then the outline of that becomes my blueprint for the final drawing.

It's in the final version that the whole thing is skinned over and things like wrinkles, veins and hair are added to make it real. I'll be posting the progress of that final image as I go so you can watch him come out of my imagination and into our world :)

Pointed

 After much faffing about, I've finally picked out the next group of photos to work from. I'm scaling up slightly from the recent insect studies so I can do justice to this set taken by me at Spurn Point a few weeks ago.

 My personal favourite is the one above- looks to me like a small, rather astonished rabbit :) That amusement aside I love the contrasting texture between the weathered wood and smooth pebbles.

 I've ordered in more of my beloved Fabriano Aristico, because there really is no comparison with other papers when you want crisp, fine detail and high contrast. I'll be working in charcoal pencil again and posting updates as the drawing progress.

I'm reckoning on a series of three and the two colour pics here are potentials for the next piece but that might depend on just how crackers I go with all those pebbles.....feel free to remind me that I thought it was a  good idea at the time !

Waspish

 After all the excitement of putting some of my bigger pieces on sale, it was back to the drawing board for my latest wildlife picture. This time it was a wasp that had caught my eye- but no ordinary wasp :)

 She's a netelia producta, or an orange caterpillar parasite wasp to you and me, that we found in our garden in Cornwall. One of those creatures that is so beautiful you feel positively inadequate just looking at her....

 She was also very cooperative and posed for several photos before flying off. I'd sold a  set of three insect studies which left me with, er, none so she got bumped up the queue for my next effort. 

Once again she's done in charcoal pencil on Langton hot press watercolour paper which has a lovely smooth surface. I worked an hour a day and took photos as I went along to share with you. 

Because she has such a dark body and white legs,  had to fill in the background to a greater extent on this one to provide contrast. Normally, I add just enough to give the image context but madame had to be difficult at some point, didn't she :)

Here she is after the final tweaking - and she's now available to buy here :)