Hummingbird

More bird practice. I had a horrible cold, and I'd been working all day and just wanted something cute to draw before bed.

Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro

Tutorial: Needle Felted Robin Earrings

Merry Christmas everyone! 

As a Christmas gift, here is an in-depth tutorial for some festive needle felted robin earrings. They're easy to make and should take about an hour - they took me an hour and a half, including taking photographs on timer and writing down all the steps on my ipad. 

Click here to download the pdf

Alternatively, you can access the tutorial and others on the Resources page of my website.

Have fun! Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. 

Needle Felting: Wrens & Rabbits

My second needle felting project was a little wren-like bird, that definitely being a form I'm familiar with. I'm trying to try at least one new thing with every new item I felt, and this project experimented with attaching polymer clay items (the beak and feet are both stitched and glued on), basic wire armature (in the tail) and creating a base from plain wool rather than building the whole thing from coloured wools. There are things I'd do differently next time, but this is all about learning what I'm doing. 

For the purposes of this photoshoot the wren is sitting on some blutac - there's a brooch fastening stitched into its base so that it can be attached to a shoulder, which means that while sitting down it's got a list to one side. If I made another I'd make an indent in the bottom of the wren to house the clasp. Previous to the clasp being attached it sat very straight and stable indeed. 

As a very quick project, it being the Easter Weekend by the time I'd finished the wren, I made a little rabbit brooch (experimenting with making a flat-based object)

Dyed and undyed merino wool with fine and coarse needles (no, they didn't come with any numbers). Black beads, black Sculpey, copper wire, lace and brooch clasps. 

I think the wren took about 4-6 hours and the brooch about 1.5 all up. 

Like wrens?

Wren Christmas Cards

Wren Thank You Cards

Wren Wedding Invitations

Wren Recipe Book

Wrens on a Wire Painting

Previous Needle Felting:

Sea Lion

Design: More Wagtail Christmas Cards

Here is the card I eventually designed for my Great Aunt. She gave me much more precise instructions, and I was told that there had to be a realistic willy wagtail, a brown frame, some red mistletoe and a papa meilland rose in the background, as she has a lovely painting of one in her room. I've never seen it, as she lives many, many miles away and I haven't visited since she got it, and I'm afraid I cheated a bit, and just altered the colours on a rose I'd already drawn for another illustration. =P She didn't say she liked it, but she didn't say she hated it, and she demanded more, so I suppose it's suitable! ^.^

These cards were handmade, with a printed message inside. I printed the illustrations on photo paper, and used double-sided foam to attach them to the cards, so that they're raised slightly:

Adobe Photoshop CS6 with a Wacom Intuos 3

Design: Wagtail Christmas Cards

I did a lot of Christmas card designs in November, and now that Christmas is nearing, it's time to blog them. 

This first design was originally done for my Great Aunt, who told me 'something Christmassy with a willy wagtail'.... I ran with that. And she hated the result. So I had to do something else for her, this time with more specific instructions, which seemed to work better. =)

Happily for me, my friend Tilly stepped in, declared she loved my poor wagtail cards, and ordered a batch for her own cards. We got them printed at the lovely moo.com, in five colour variations:

I did the main design in Adobe Illustrator CS6, and added textures (from Ming-ling) in Adobe Photoshop CS6. 

Painting: Wrens on a Wire

My client now has the finished piece, so I can blog the final product!

(click to see it larger)

This isn't the best scan – I had to scan it in five pieces, and the texture of rough paper never seems to align just right, unfortunately. But it was the best I could do with a 26" painting. =P

Wrens in Photoshop are much easier than in watercolour!

Here are a couple of details:

Winsor & Newton watercolours, Reeves Gouache, white Cromacryl acrylic and Prismacolour pencils on 300gsm hot-pressed watercolour paper. 

Previous Posts

Previous Posts:

Progress: Wrens on a Wire

Progress: Wrens on a Wire 2

Progress: Wrens on a Wire 3

Progress: Wrens on a Wire 4

Progress: Wrens on a Wire 4

A bit more progress. Painted Lady butterflies are slow going! So are blue wrens, actually, the brown ones are much easier.

And here's a peek at my current little illustration, again finishing off something I started in July.

Previous Posts:

Progress: Wrens on a Wire

Progress: Wrens on a Wire 2

Progress: Wrens on a Wire 3

Progress: Wrens on a wire 3

A bit more progress. I've also been pencilling in some texture on the background around the wrens already done, so progress isn't quite as slow as it looks. Two and a half wrens and a butterfly to go, and hopefully I'll get more done in the next few days, when it isn't 40-odd degrees. Weather like this is not only flattening, it also isn't at all good for attempting to use the watercolours until the cooler evenings. >.<

And as a bonus, here is my warm-up painting from tonight. My friend's parents are holidaying in Slovenia, and we're enjoying seeing the photos they upload (and being jealous of all the snow =P). John takes some of the most gorgeous pictures, and I based this on one of them. I did it no justice at all, of course, but I quite like it for what it is; Winsor and Newton watercolours in a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook, 30 minutes. 

Previous Posts:

Progress: Wrens on a Wire

Progress: Wrens on a Wire 2

Progress: Wrens on a Wire 2

No, I'm not as slow as it looks, truly! 

In addition to these wrens, I'm working on two posters, a bunch of BLM illustrations due the 20th, and a portrait that should be done by Friday if I can manage it. And somewhere in there I need to put up the Christmas tree and actually get to some shops. o.O 

But I'm busy, and that's a good thing!

So to prevent blog stagnation from lots of private work, here's some progress on the wrens – I am now halfway through; three wrens and one butterfly to go. Plus I want to work some pencil and stuff into the background and make it look a bit more leafy and lush.  

Winsor & Newton watercolours, Reeves Gouache, Chromacryl acrylic and Prismacolour Pencils on watercolour paper. 

Oh! And hello to new watchers! =)

Progress: Wrens on a Wire

Here's some progress shots from a current commission from someone who likes the little wrens I do. These wrens are watercoloured, not digital, which is a bit trickier, and the painting is pretty huge (26" across) but I think it's coming along pretty well:

This is the original concept sketch:

Which was then, after approval, developed into this refined layout. 

I drew all the wrens separately, and compiled the image in Photoshop. (Yes, an extra wren was added, as originally the image was not supposed to be so large =P)

And a fresh colour study:

After that had been approved, and I'd waited a couple of days for the weather to cool down sufficiently to make watercolour washing not a completely idiotic idea, I could start. I'd purchased a large sheet of watercolour paper, and trimmed it to size, and I printed out the layout on several sheets of paper and stuck them together so I could trace it:

And I then did the watercolour wash. Which for some reason, like every wash I ever attempt, did not work. I always end up with blotchy areas that just don't cover properly, no matter what paint, brushes or paper I use. Arrg!

I soaked the whole thing in the bath and then did a new wash over the top, which fixed it up a bit (I did stretch it out on my desk and tape it down, but the darn thing escaped bondage while I was out of the room, so it's a bit wrinkled, too >.<)

And then, since my mother had brought a spatter tool home from school so I could practice before helping with her art, I did some extra salvage work by spattering gouache over the whole thing:

After which the background was much better. Phew!

And now I'm just down to painting wrens and butterflies. Even with a painting this size, most of the work is done with a #1 brush, along with a #00 and even occasional touches with a #000 (for the butterflies), so it's not the fastest of work. Extra work is done with coloured pencils and a touch of gouache.

The wren pictured above is 9cm from beak to wingtip. 

Tomorrow I start on the cuddling wrens. =) 

Finished Christmas Cards

I actually finished these last week, but things also got rather hectic around then, and I didn't manage to photograph them until today. 

I chose to turn the window illustration into a 'framed miniature' - you can possibly see by the shadow that the bottom is raised up with a little double-sided foam tape, while the top is stuck down firmly, with a ribbon bow. There's also some white glitter making up the snow – not very noticeable, but adds a little sparkle when the card catches the light.

The blue wrens are constructed more simply – but have much more noticeable glitter. 

All together they make up quite a hefty pile (the windows take up extra room because of all that foam tape =P) and they're being stored in my cupboard until it's time to write in them. If you look closely in this photo you'll see a variety of other cards from my cardmaking orgy this afternoon; 12 misc cards for a client, and three family birthday cards that need to be sent off this week. Plus one special occasion card that I did on the weekend. 

My life seems rather full of cards at the present moment....

Progress: Christmas Cards

Progress has been made! I finished off the scarlet robin cards on Monday night - it took about three hours to put 40 of them together, including cutting the paper down and everything, and another hour to produce 12 generic cards with photos of flowers and the like, for the same client. Happily I have a large selection of flower photos for just that sort of purpose. 

Here's a photo of one of the finished cards, nestled in one of our bottlebrush trees, which seemed an apt place:

I have also finished off the blue wren cards. Not as happy with them as the robins, but they're not too bad. When I went and got the robins printed I also ran off 50 blue wrens and 50 window cards – and spent the better part of yesterday evening cutting them all out. I now have everything ready for assembly. I'm looking forward to getting the red glitter on the baubles; it really lifts the cards. =)

Previous posts:

Progress: Yet More Christmas Cards

Illustration: More Christmas Cards

Illustration: At the Window

2011 Christmas cards 1

Progress: Yet More Christmas Cards

The start of a little something by way of parent-appeasement. They were perfectly happy with the Christmas cards I designed for this year until they saw these ones. So I thought I'd try and whip up something similar, and have two card designs for this year. I want to go with a blue theme this year (for several years our cards have been red) so have gone with a splendid fairy wren. 

Blue wrens take a bit longer than scarlet robins – this has taken me 1 hour 20 so far (yet again reusing that long-suffering bauble) and I've still got a fair bit to do.

I haven't yet decided what colour to do the background, blue will make it too heavy overall... I may well move the bauble more to the right as well; I'm not sure that I'm happy with the balance at the moment. I didn't start with a sketch, which is often not the best of ideas. =P

Adobe Photoshop CS4 with a Wacom Intuos 3

Illustration: More Christmas cards

Here we have another Christmas card design – for a client this time. (Yes, it's rather early, but they do recommend that international Christmas mail be sent by the end of October) 

I was given absolute free reign as to the design itself, so since I have some splendid fairy wrens to do shortly, I thought I'd practice plump birds by putting a scarlet robin (native to south western and south eastern Australia) on the cards.

Here's the original sketch. This is heavily influenced by the fairy wrens I did on some wedding invitations last year, as I like the way the flat black branches contrast the fat little birds.  

It came out looking quite Japanese in style, so I added a faint fan pattern behind, using a texture from here. I'm not quite sure if I like the effect; I may remove it later. 

When I turn these into cards there will be gold glitter on the bands of the bauble (hence my deciding to preserve my sanity a little by simplifying the bauble design =P)

Adobe Photoshop CS4 with a Wacom Intuos 3, somewhere in the region of three to three and a half hours.

Illustration: Wren Thankyou Cards

You may remember the Wren wedding invitations I did some months ago. These are the thank you cards that went with them, which it just occurred to me I had not yet blogged. 

I used the original painting of wrens from the invitation, and dressed them up in the clothes and bouquet from the wedding itself. Wrens in dinner jackets are just too marvelous to pass up. ^.^ I'm not quite sure how the bride is actually holding on to the bouquet, but we'll call that artistic license, shall we? =P It's certainly held in her left wing. 

I can't remember exactly, but I think I made about 70. We got them printed at a Kodak photo booth, and stuck them on to folded card with double-sided tape.

Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Design: Wren Recipe Book

I designed these two little splendid fairy wrens for a recipe book I put together for my friend Tilly, who's getting married on Saturday. Today was her bridal shower, and I got everyone coming to contribute a few favourite recipes, and typed them up into a book, which I then got bound up.

I chose to do wrens because I did the Wren Wedding Invitations for Tilly, and thought I'd just carry on the theme. 

The male blue wren was part of a blue layout, for savoury recipes, and the brown female wren was part of a pink page, for sweet recipes. And I had one drinks recipe, so put both of them on that, with a purple colour scheme. 

Wrens and page design were done in Adobe Illustrator CS4, and the text was done in Adobe InDesign CS4.

Wren Wedding Invitations

Lately I've been doing a fair bit of wedding invitation design, which has been fun.

So, here's the result of one of these projects.

I started out with five design concepts, based around information gathered in a questionnaire I gave the couple. This is the design they chose, based on this horrible thumbnail sketch and a bit of a write-up.

And really, when the things to include include the words 'blue', 'feathers', 'cute' and 'friendly' – how can you resist a fairy wren or two?

Once we'd finalised the choice of design, I started with this sketch, and then did a digital painting:

You can see the final painting over here at my deviantart account.

And here are some snaps of the invitations and RSVP postcards that were put together. I still have other things to do for this wedding, but we got the invitations sent out in good time.

The bride, my mother, and I spent a day getting the various parts of the invitations ready (folding, cutting the ribbon, cutting out and embossing the wrens), and then I put them all together the next day:

The invitations were triple-folded, with a quote on the inside flap, the invitation wording in the centre, and hand-drawn maps to the chapel and reception on the left and right.

The postcards were printed by CJ King, and they did a great job.

The invitations I'm working on currently bear no similarity to these at all. It's nice to know I can be versatile.