Watercolour: Millie

I've been doing some scene illustrations from Diana Wynne Jones' wonderful Charmed Life for my black and white portfolio, and wanted to do some practice with my grey ecoline before putting brush to paper on a more complete and complicated linework (I'm always slightly freaked out by the properties of ecoline, and feel the need to practice with them if I haven't used them for a while, in case I have forgotten something vital and thus mess everything up irretrievably.) I've been doing some character sketches in my sketchbook while out and about, so I worked one of them up into an ink and ecoline sketch. So here is Millie, Chrestomanci's wife: 

They were ushered in front of a plump lady with a mild face. She had a gorgeous lace dress on – Gwendolen's eyes swept up and down it with considerable awe – but otherwise she was one of the most ordinary ladies they had ever seen. 

I didn't see any mention of her having a pet cat in the book itself, but my hazy recollection of one of the other books in the series tells me that she had a lot to do with cats when she was young, she she does carry the cat Fiddle at one point in Charmed Life. Anyway, I need cat practice. 

I gave the whole thing a digital teal wash so I could use it for Colour Collective on Twitter. If I'd had teal ecoline I could have done it in colour initially, but I'm not even sure there is such a thing as teal ecoline... I don't have any, anyway! I have a basic set of Ecoline, and some extra grey, as I usually use it for greyscale images only. 

And here's a sneak peek at the linework for the finished piece I'm about to paint. This photo was taken a few days ago, when I hadn't finished the inking, but overall it's a more interesting picture, being an actual illustration, than the above straight character portrait.

Pentel Brush Pen and Copic Multiliners with Cold Grey Ecoline and Copic Opaque White in a Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook. 

Watercolour: Chinese New Year

I did this little piece very quickly for last week's Colour Collective on Twitter. I've got plenty to keep me occupied at the moment, but my friend gave me some new watercolour for my birthday on the 13th, and I hadn't had a chance to try it out all week! Also, one of my lovely new colours was Winsor Orange, and the Colour Collective was Orange Lake Light – not quite the same, but definitely fate (and as close as I was going to get with watercolour, anyway). 

With that kind of encouragement, I had to do a little watercolour!

I chose Chinese New Year as the theme, as it seemed to go rather well with an orange colour scheme. And I decided it was the year of the ram for the purposes of this picture, because with my surname, how can I go with a goat? 

I managed to squeeze in the other two paints I got as well – Vandyke Brown and Olive Green. 

I need to study sheep some more...

Winsor & Newton watercolours and Copic Multiliners in a Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook.

Watercolour: Puffins

A little piece I did for last week's Colour Collective on Twitter. The colour was flame red, although this isn't actually painted with Flame Red, because I don't have that colour paint: it's a combination of Cadmium Scarlet and Winsor Red. 

I'm not even at all fond of this image - it looked a lot better in my head, but I didn't have enough time to execute it properly, but I thought I should blog it anyway, rather than leave it languishing in a sketchbook:

Here's is the inked version. I really need to work on my hand-lettering:

And here is my original sketch, which I like better. Ah well:

Winsor & Newton watercolours and Copic Multiliners in a Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook.