Aqua Dog Book Launch

I recently worked on a lovely picture book, Aqua Dog, by Lisa Van Der Wielen. Lisa contacted me to do the illustrations last year, and I loved bringing cheeky, determined Aqua to life, and surrounding him with the stark beauty of the Western Australian Wheatbelt. 

Here is the book trailer:

The book is available in paperback, and also a very lovely hardback, through Amazon. Click here to purchase.

Lisa launched Aqua Dog on the 28th March, and invited me to come along. It was lovely to meet her - we had not previously met in person, as with many of my clients all our correspondence was through email - and she did a lovely job putting the launch together.

See more photos below the cut:

Toucan!

I've been practicing birds, and so here is a toucan!

Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro

Baby Cards!

I always like to do special hand painted cards for babies - such a special occasion, it warrants a bit more effort on my part! - and in February we had TWO babies arrive, just over 24 hours apart, so I got out my paints and made these two cards:

The first card was for my friend Tilly, and baby number 2, a daughter - she now has a son and a daughter, plus a husband and two dogs, so they're a perfect little family!

I'd bought the baby presents well ahead of time, just before Christmas - our local toyshop was closing down (nooo!) so we went in and grabbed some bargains - and I'd unintentionally gone all owl-themed. So I thought I'd go for broke and put an owl on the card as well:

The second card was for my eldest cousin Claire, and her third daughter, who arrived the next day. I stuck with flowers for this card. Roses are quick to draw, and I had such a lot of work on I didn't want to be spending ages working on this:

Both cards took about 45 minutes and were done in Winsor and Newton watercolours, Pentel Brush Pens, Copic Multiliners, Kuretake Touch of Stellar pens and some metallic watercolours with no visible brand, that I bought at a lovely art shop in Singapore.

Head below the cut for time-lapse video of me painting both cards, along with some sketches and a closer look at the shimmery metallic paints that aren't really visible in the above photos!

Robin Hood

Last year I did a few Robin Hood themed illustrations for Colour Collective, while the colours miraculously worked with the theme. I don't know how that happened! Where was the hot pink to throw a spanner in my works?

While we were in the UK, I (briefly) saw a weasel. I was amazed by how small it was, I'd always thought they were bigger. So naturally I had to draw one, and I thought Robin Hood would make an ideal weasel. He's always getting out of sticky situations. And the Colour Collective colour was 'Lincoln Green'. Meant to be!



Then 'Scheveningen Yellow Light' was the next colour, and I thought Maid Marian, with her original association with May Day, should be frolicking amongst the daffodils. We saw a lot of daffodils on holiday.



And then the next colour was 'Seashell', which turned out to be the perfect colour for mushrooms. Friar Tuck seemed to me to be perfect as a mole. We didn't see any moles on holiday (I don't think it's usual to see any!) but we did see some molehills.

Chattering Lories

For Colour Collective's 'Cardinal Red' prompt, I was going to go very uninspired and draw some cardinal birds. But then my mother reminded me of lories. I can't think why I had forgotten about them, I was only in the Lory House at Jurong Bird Park two months ago! So I changed my plan and chose chattering lories, endemic to North Maluku, Indonesia. They are considered vulnerable in the wild due to illegal trapping.

Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro. A little over two hours.

Australian Animals

Here are some sketches of various Australian animals, which I've been doing as bedtime wind-downs. I like to have a little time before bed just to draw something pointless. 

This is a forty-spotted pardalote, endangered and endemic to a small area of Tasmania. I hadn't heard of them, but I saw them on Gardening Australia and they were so cute. They also matched perfectly with Colour Collective's 'Turmeric' prompt, so I included it as a bonus CC as well. 

Here is a numbat. They are also endangered, and native to Western Australia. Obviously I had heard of numbats. A lot. I love them.

A Tasmanian echidna. I saw one on David Attenborough's Tasmania and absolutely fell in love with it, so cute. I was filled with a desire to needle felt one, but I totally don't have felting time right now, so a quick sketch was the best I was going to get:

More below the cut: