Illustration: Happily Ever After

I'm sure there were more sensible things I could have been doing with my time while waiting on work, but sometimes you just need to do something for no other reason than that you feel like it, and this is one of those things. Plus, I have a brand spanking new lightbox (which I adore) and wanted to try it out!

I had been working on an illustration to go with Galileo's Daughter, but fortunately I didn't get too far. I made a mistake with the start of the watercolour and set it aside to think about... and somehow my dog got up to it and stomped all over it with her muddy paws. And that was the end of that illustration (that's why it was fortunate that I didn't get too far). The world must have been telling me that it was better to just start over! 

However, there was still the other side of the paper, and the Galileo illustration had only taken up half the paper anyway, so I still had half a page of paper, pristine except for some pawprints on the back. So I used it as a companion piece to my earlier Snow White watercolour, because I felt like drawing medieval costume.

I'm not as happy with the prince as I could be, but decided that as he does look rather like old medieval illustrations, he could stay that way. Anyway, does it actually specify 'handsome' anywhere?

Here's the companion piece, Snow White when she is much younger:

I had started a sketch like this a couple of months ago, but abandoned it, so I went back to it and completely redid it so that it worked:

And then I inked it (using my new lightbox. So exciting!)

Most of the inking was done with a Pentel Brush Pen, but a few of the finer details, and the trees, were done with an Artline Drawing System pen. 

And here are a couple of details:

I don't usually go so overboard with the patterns, but it was a lot of fun to make the fabrics really sumptuous.

Winsor and Newton watercolours with Series 7 brushes, Pentel Brush Pen and Artline Drawing System Pens, on Moleskine Watercolour paper. And a tiny bit of Copic Opaque White for a few highlights. 

Watercolour: Sleeping Beauty

Still waiting on clients, so I've been able to keep having some fun with daily sketch topics on Twitter. This one was the @sketch_dailies topic a couple of days ago – Sleeping Beauty –, and gave me an excuse to revisit a sketch I did many years ago:

This is done with Winsor & Newton Watercolours and a Pentel Brush Pen in my neglected Moleskine watercolour sketchbook. I'm currently working on a much tighter watercolour, and it was fun to splash around a bit more as a break!

Here's the sketch. I did most of it sitting in bed; there'd been a bit of a fight in the street outside, not a bad one, but I was feeling a bit nervy and wanted to calm down before going to sleep. The next day I made a few adjustments in Photoshop, because I always get wonky proportions when sketching in bed:

And here's the original sketch. I'm not entirely sure when I did it, from the looks of it about 2003, I suppose. I remember liking it at the time, and about 2006 I scanned it into my computer to try and fix it up with full digital colour... but it wasn't doing what I wanted and was abandoned. I think I've definitely improved in the meantime (and so I would hope!)

About one hour altogether, including the sketch... maybe an hour and a half.

Illustration: Fight Like a Pirate

Apart from some portraiture, I'm mainly waiting for feedback on work I'm doing, or for other work to materialise at the moment, so I've been having a bit of fun with the @Daily_Doodle prompts over on Twitter. 

I got a bit carried away with this one....

With a pirate-themed prompt, I just couldn't resist revisiting my hapless pirate Gawain (sorry, he likes to be known as 'Blackbeard the Terrible'. If the 'Gawain' ever got out he'd never live it down, it's the root of all his troubles as it is) and his nemesis. I first designed them way back in 2012, but wasn't entirely happy with the style. This is something I can do more comfortably. 

The full prompt was 'Fight like a pirate' – not Gawain's strong suit. 

And here's another picture of Gawain, this time managing to present a proper piratey face to the world. I did this back in 2012 too, tweaking the original style I was using, but I don't think I'd posted it anywhere:

There is also a colouring page of this over on my website.

All done in Photoshop with a Wacom Intuos 3.

iPad: Caprice Bohémien

I did this little painting using Sketchbook Pro on my iPad mini. No, she's not Esmerelda.

It's a cleaned-up version of this very messy sketch, which I did (in extremely low light) while listening to Rachmaninov's Caprice Bohémien at a WASO Concert. Don't get me wrong, WASO is fabulous and the music is beautiful, but it makes my mind wander, and if I occupy my hands in response to the music, I can focus on it a lot better. Plus, the person sitting in front of me had the most enormous head ever, and blocked out a good two-thirds-plus of the stage.... and his wife had big hair, so I could only see about three violinists and the double bass, and occasionally the guy on cymbals. >.<

I quite liked the sketch, so when I wanted something to work on while watching tv I snapped a photo of it and took it into Sketchbook Pro. It's quicker working on the computer (and I'm much more polished with that) but I can't lounge around by the heater and watch tv in the evenings if I'm using the computer – I have to sit all alone out in the office. =P 

The linework isn't as clean as usual, so I haven't put up a colouring page on my website, but if anyone would like it, here's the linework on its own so feel free to have a colour – please don't remove my logo or web address, claim as your own or use for profit, but please do have fun!

You can find more colouring pages on my website.

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on an iPad mini, using a Wacom Intuos Stylus. Slight saturation adjustment in Adobe Photoshop CC.

Portrait: Joan Blondell

Here's a portrait of the fabulous Joan Blondell - initially an exercise in doing a colour portrait from a black and white reference photo, and in using the iPad.

I did most of it using SketchbookPro on my iPad mini, with a Wacom Intuos stylus, but as my reference was also on the iPad, I couldn't see it and my work at the same time, so the likeness was atrocious. I then took it into Photoshop in my computer and fixed it up a bit so that it actually did look like Joan Blondell. It languished for a while before I did that, but I dusted it off and finished it yesterday.

Here's a progress animation compiled from screenshots I took while I was working on the iPad. I had a lot of fun doing the hair! All bar the last (final) stage was done using the ipad:

Autodesk SketchbookPro for iPad, iPad mini, Wacom Intuos stylus, Adobe Photoshop CC and a Wacom Intuos 3.

Needle Felting: Guppy Tutorial

Want to know how to needle felt this guppy?

I put together a tutorial for a friend a few months ago, as she was having trouble felting a fish for a birthday present, and rather than have it just gather dust on my hard drive, I figured I should share it before I forgot all about it. 

It's a bit rough as I put it together very quickly, and haven't gone back and edited it or anything. I haven't mentioned needle sizes, but you can generally tell what I'm using from the photos: the needle in the holder is a #38, the plain tip is a #36, the pink tip is a #32. The yellow tip is a star needle, but I'm not sure of its gauge. 

Any questions, please feel free to ask!

The tute is a pdf, you can view it here. 

Alternatively you can find it in the Fun Stuff > Resources section of my website, where there are a number of other tutorials. 

The instructions are just for a flat, one-sided guppy, suitable for framing or making into a magnet or brooch etc, but can easily be adapted to make something that is viewable from both sides. It's flat because I didn't have much time, pretty much. To make a 3D guppy, make the fins and tail first and sandwich them between two body shapes. Felt those together, building up as necessary, and then add the details to both sides.

Sketch: What I Wore

Stalled a bit coming up with solutions for a job I'm doing, and so changed tack and took some time out to whip up this quick What I Wore Today sketch in Manga Studio:

That's my dog Myrna. I realised too late that I should have worn a red belt and then we would have completely matched!

In other news, I am now on Twitter. You can find me at @AleneArt or via the sidebar of this blog. I'll be posting more rough sketches and sneak peeks over there than I do on the blog.