Nevermoor

I'd been reading Nevermoor, by Jessica Townsend, which is rather like Harry Potter, only without Harry - and as I always found Harry pretty irritating, this suits me down to the ground. It's the sort of fantasy kidlit book that makes me want to draw all of it, so I've been doing a few sketches:

"Suddenly that's what she was - a living tidal wave of rage and fear. She was not like him, she would never be like him."

"Morrigan stumbled backwards and instinctively threw up her arms, surrendering herself to the wave inside."

Building Practice #3

More sketches of buildings from my holiday photos!

First, we have Knaresborough, in Yorkshire - there are the most amazing chequerboard buildings there. This one is Mother Shipton's Cave (although as I understand it the cave is some walk away, I think this is where you bought tickets. We were just stopping off on our way through, so we didn't investigate the cave)

Next up, and slightly off-script, is a sketch purely from my imagination. It was going to have some figures in, but I worked for longer than planned, and my bedtime sketch was accordingly cut short. 

Thirdly, Micklegate Bar, York. This was just down the road from our hotel, and I walked this small section of the York Wall several times. I also did the whole Wall walk with my mother. 

Next, Chawton, in Hampshire. This is the village where Jane Austen spent the last years of her life. This little set of cottages is on the short walk between Chawton Cottage, where she lived with her sister and mother, and Chawton House, where her brother lived. 

This quick piece is based on a photo I took in Clifford's Tower, York. My photo did not feature a cat, of course, but I thought it needed one.

And finally, (in this set) we have Kynance Mews in Kensington, London, which I for some reason forgot to label. This is what happens when you throw things together when you really should be going to bed...

These were all done in Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro.

Building Practice #2

After sketching buildings from holiday snaps in black and white for a while, I began to be sad that I was missing all the colours, so I upped my game and turned to colour:

I started with the Hartley Mauditt church in Hampshire. Such a cute church, it's all that's left of the village of Hartley Mauditt (and fortunately it had a sign, so I knew where it was!)



I hadn't planned on doing two churches in a row, but my father asked me to sketch our friends' church, St Mary Magdalene at West Tisted. This is a flint church, so very different from the one at Hartley Mauditt. 



Next, I chose an amazing building somewhere in Hampshire. So many levels!



After that, I thought it was time for a thatched cottage. We saw a lot of them in Hampshire, but this one is in Godshill, Isle of Wight.



And finally (for this post) a 15th century farmhouse. At the time of sketching, I didn't know where this was, hence the label reading only 'Hampshire', but when I posted it on Instagram someone very kindly told me it was Goleigh Manor in Prior's Dean. The wonders of social media!



I've actually been having a lot more fun with these than I thought I would! And as I have a lot of material in our holiday photos, I plan to continue. The aim is to be able to draw interesting and realistic houses from my imagination, eventually... but it's fun to make use of the holiday photos!

Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro

Practicing Buildings

I like to draw people and animals, and find perspective and buildings more difficult, so naturally I draw less of them. It's normal to have some things you like to draw better than others... but I really should practice the other things more! In that spirit, I thought I would do a series of sketches from some of our holiday photos.

Starting off easy, with wonky old buildings where the lines don't have to be straight anyway:

Budgies and Brahma Hens

Bird practice. I needed something fun to wind down before bed during a week of deadlines and colds and blah. 

A budgie:

And a very grumpy Brahma hen, referenced from my book 'Extra Extraordinary Chickens' (Green-Armytage) 

Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro

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:

Building Practice #1

I thought I really should practice drawing buildings, which have never been my strongest subject. So, I thought, a good way to do this would be to take some interesting buildings that I photographed on holiday, and sketch them, starting with really old buildings, where wonky lines are practically required.

I started out doing black and white sketches, and then moved to colour. But for this post, I'm going to compile just the black and white ones:

Somewhere in Hampshire. We spent a lot of time driving around with our friends, and Hampshire has a lot of winding roads (with no names!) so sometimes I have photographs but absolutely no idea of where they are. Other times, of course, I know exactly where things are, such as this 16th century hearth passage house, which is opposite the square in Petersfield:

This rambling cottage is opposite St Andrews Church in Farnham, Surrey. We were there on our last day in Hampshire, to hear our friend sing in a choir concert in the church. 

And this little place is on North Street in York. York is fabulous for wandering down roads and finding ancient buildings.

All of these were done on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro, using Adobe Photoshop CC2018, and Kyle Webster's 'sketch pencil rough' brush. 

Folktale Week 2018

I took part in Folktale Week over on Instagram. Still very busy, so a lot of my posts involved sneaky reusing and altering of existing work, but better than nothing!

Day 1: Forest 

In which I sneakily use a study of Rottnest Island, change the lighting, add some sparkles and call it good.

More below the cut:

Witches

Here are two witch sketches I did, the first one I did actually on Halloween. I shouldn't have had time to do it, but I was having a bit of technical trouble with my graphics tablet, and we'd had to source a second-hand one so I could continue working while the original was being repaired. I kept working on the old one while I set up the replacement... and I foolishly signed out of Photoshop on the old one before I realised that Photoshop wasn't up to date on the new one... so I had a half-hour where I was waiting for updates, and I borrowed my father's iPad Pro and did this sketch. It was Halloween, and all I had for social media was a rough sketch of Hogwarts for the end of Inktober 2018. And I was a bit stressed, what with all the tech troubles, so I reverted to default 'poofy dress sketch'.

And the second witch was for Colour Collective's 'Auburn' prompt. It was a few days after Halloween at this point, but I've been listening to a Tiffany Aching book, so I've got witches on my mind. (Not that this is Tiffany, she wouldn't be seen dead in this cloak, although she would probably mildly approve of the boots). I needed a quick subject as I'd had a very long, active and busy day; I just wanted to draw something quick, and go to bed as soon as it was a reasonable time to do so. (Colour Collective falls at 3.30am here, not 7.30pm as in the UK, so I had plenty of time for a quick CC and an early bed time).

 

The first witch was done in Procreate on an iPad Pro, using mainly the default dry inking brush, and the second was done in Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro, using mainly Kyle Webster's sketch pencil rough.

Inktober 2018: Harry Potter

I don't have any Harry Potter art in my files, which kinda feels like sacrilege for a kid lit illustrator, so I thought I'd make Harry Potter my theme for Inktober 2018.

I also decided to do my Inktober digitally (It's allowed, it's even in the official rules!) on my father's iPad Pro, to get a bit more comfortable with Procreate and the Apple Pencil. I work almost exclusively on my Wacom Mobile Studio Pro, only occasionally borrowing the iPad, and the different interface and behaviour of the Apple Pencil are a bit confusing. I thought Inktober was the perfect opportunity to improve my Procreate skills at the most basic level, without being too ambitious. I decided I'd mainly do character sketches, because I'm actually very busy, but add in a few scenes as well, to keep things a bit more interesting. I gave myself a 15-minute time limit for each of these, so some of them are very scrappy!

We'll start off with the three main characters, and I'll pop the rest below the cut:

Misc Sketches

I did my last blog post of miscellaneous sketches back in March, so it's about time for another one!

Let's kick things off with Myrna, done for the 'fool' prompt of the SCBWI West Challenge - my local SCBWI branch has been posting daily sketch topics on Instagram, for people to join in when they want some ideas or inspiration. 

And a Myrna with flowers, for a birthday card for my mother:

More below the cut:

Mermay 2018

It's always fun to take part in Mermay, where you draw a mermaid every day for the month of May. Social media challenges are always a lot of fun. I don't beat myself up if I don't manage to do every day, if I'm busy, I'm busy... but if I've got a spare half hour, it's nice to sketch something and be part of the community.

Day 1:

The rest are below the cut:

Colour Collective Cats

Here are a few cats I did for Colour Collective throughout May. I was pretty busy, and needed a quick subject, and black cats are one of my go-tos for that. 

'Dioxazine Mauve'

More below the cut:

Pen Pals

Colour Collective's 'Celeste' prompt came right at Easter... but I didn't want to do anything Easter-themed for it. The colour reminded me of ice, and eventually that ended up with this little set of pen pals. I don't know about you, but I always cringe when I see illustrations with penguins and polar bears in the same place - these two are definitely in their original habitats, but with their icy life experiences, I thought they'd make perfect pen pals!

Here's a look at them individually:

I rather like this little bear - I'm not sure I've ever drawn a polar bear before!

As tends to be my habit with Colour Collective, I threw these together very quickly, but I think I'd like to take them further one day. They can go in my files for when I have no inspiration and want to rework something. =)

Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro

About 2 hours total

Misc Sketches

Here are some miscellaneous sketches I've done this year:

Katia, the protagonist in the picture book I did for my honours project in Uni. I'm fond of her, every now and then I dust her off:

I don't know if this girl is hiding or discovering something. It's up to you:

There are more below the cut!

Inktober 2017: Week 3

I'm afraid I fell off the Inktober bandwagon after week 3 this year: I caught a cold, got a sinus infection and discovered that I had two impacted wisdom teeth that need to be removed (and let me tell you, sinus infection and impacted wisdom teeth is not a good combo. I wouldn't wish that on anyone!). I was really sick for several days (and now I am still in pain and my productivity is suffering) so I gave up on completing Inktober. I gave it a good shot and got all the way to Day 21.

I started out the week with no very clear idea about what I was going to be doing, so I did a vaguely 20s-inspired witch, but she doesn't look very 20s...

I also made a sped-up video of this, testing out the old camcorder that I suddenly remembered we had. Unfortunately it's way too old to actually have a timelapse function, so I sped it up in Adobe Premiere Pro:

I needed to do a test with our camcorder (which I just remembered we had, and dug out of the cupboard) and adobe premiere pro, so I thought I’d film my #inktoberday15 and see how I went making a sped-up film. Sorry about the black bars- still learning!! 💜 . . . #inktober #inktober2017 #witch #1920s #magic #spell #pentelbrushpen #artistsoninstagram #artistatwork #ink #timelapse #timelapsevideo #drawing #illustration #illustratorsoninstagram #kidlitartist

A post shared by Alison Mutton (@alene.art) on Oct 15, 2017 at 11:30am PDT

Then I did a sketchy little piece revisiting my little witch with the goose:

After that I switched to drawing my dog, Myrna. She's always a good subject:

Day 17:

More below the cut:

Inktober 2017: Week 2

Despite being horrendously busy, I decided that I would take some time for Inktober this year. If you don't know what that is, it's an October challenge on social media, where you draw something in ink every day. Some of the artwork is amazing, go check it out! There is an official prompt list, and a number of people write their own prompt lists - but there are no real rules, and I'm not following any prompts.

I decided to draw really little images each day - just so I can have ten to twenty minutes working with a nice traditional brush pen, on actual paper, on something that doesn't have to be perfect. I'm not pretending to be up there with the people who do a full-blown, amazing illustration every day. I'm too busy for that, for a start! =P

For my second week, my character was a black raven:

See more below the cut:

The Witch's Companion

A little piece for Colour Collective's 'Pantone 292 C' prompt. It seemed like a good colour for a ribbon, perhaps around a cat's neck... and I'd been playing around with witches in my sketches so it sort of evolved from there:

Anyway, I need to practice cats. We've always had a dog, so I'm naturally more familiar with pooches than pusses - but that is no excuse!

I think this is my most popular Colour Collective to date, which makes me very happy. =) I'd quite like to do more with this little feline. I like to do chapter-book style illustration, I've always liked some nice linework. 

Here's another piece I did in the same vein for Colour Collective a few weeks later. The prompt this time was 'Vert Réséda:

Here are some more witchy sketches:

Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2. The Colour Collective took 2-3 hours. Not quite sure how long the sketches took - quicker than the CC, anyway. 

Meaningful Conversation

Baker Miller Pink for Colour Collective! This pink was developed through studies to reduce stress and aggravation - a fascinating history for a colour, and it was really quite a shame that I'd had a really good day and was in really good mood anyway while working on this. What a waste! =P 

It being MerMay on social media, whenever I hadn't had a topic in mind for my bedtime sketches I'd been doing mermaids. The idea is actually to post a mermaid a day, but I don't have time for that. However, mermaids are nice and girly and all the work I am doing at the moment really isn't, so they're great for a bit of a wind-down in the evenings! This piece was based on this very very quick sketch I did earlier in the week:

I'd just finished off the book dummy for Sioban Timmer's Feral Fergus, which is a fabulous book, but very much gross-boy-themed. So it was fun to just go all-out super girly with this. Pink! And more pink! And Mermaids! And pearls! 

Here are some other (super-quick and messy) sketches I did on the Mermaid theme during may:

More below the cut: