Happy New Year!

I hope you enjoy celebrating the New Year tonight and all the best for 2013! x

Boy Fishing

Under the Sea

Jungle Scene

I have been trying to take my mind off the wintery weather outside by thinking of warmer climes such as this jungle scene :)

Christmas Cards

New Home

Christmas Robin

Today I am working on a set of Christmas Cards. I have been trying out painting with acrylic and then using pastel pencils on top for more of a textural look.

Bonfire Night!

Here is the finished illustration. I combined parts from my Halloween illustration with my watercolour paintings.

Firework Doodles

I've spent this afternoon using my watercolour paint to create some Firework doodles. I think I will have a play about with them in Photoshop tomorrow and make a Bonfire night illustration. I will see what I can do!

Tortoise on Walkabout

Hen & Duckling in water

I thought I would upload this to my blog as it was never used for anything and I want to show it off! :)

Cat & Fish

Happy Halloween

Well it's nearly here, I love this time of year, such fun! I seem to be constantly painting trees at the moment, and what better time of year to paint a spooky tree than Halloween. Hope you have a fun night when it comes :)

Hen & Duck

Boats

Painting Trees

I've had a very relaxing Sunday afternoon painting trees. Hope you've had a lovely weekend :)

Autumn Leaves

Sorry things have been so quiet on my Blog recently! Here is an Autumnal spread for you as it is starting to feel a bit chilly here. :)

Summer Holidays

So school's out for summer now, which means I have lots of time to spend on my own personal art projects. I hope to do lots of drawing in my sketchbook and continue building up my porfolio. Happy days! :)

Tea Party..

This is what I was working on today. Trying out more of a limited palette. It's difficult not to go a bit crazy with adding random colours, so with this piece I tried to use similar colours to get a different effect. It's much more subtle than the colours I usually go for but I quite like it!

Fishing Boat

Findochty Harbour

I did a sketch of Findochty Harbour a few months back, and have finally got around to adding some colour. My original drawing had black lines but I decided to change them to white. It's incredible the effect the colour of line makes. It changes the drawing completely and gives it a very different feel. Thanks for reading and enjoy the Bank Holiday!

Chicken & Worm

Here is a wee peek at a section of what I'm working on today. I don't want to show you all of it until it's finished. I'm probably going to do lots more tweaking before I'm happy with it!

Chicken & Duck

I am trying to master drawing digitally with a tablet. I want my drawings to look fresh and lively and as non "digital" as possible. Here is a little snippet of something I'm working on at the moment.

Ducklings

I went to a talk in Edinburgh yesterday by the illustrator Ross Collins, it was fantastic. I am feeling very inspired today and have been frantically sketching out ideas for a book. One of the characters in the book is a duckling, here are some sketches showing what i've been working on.

Greetings Cards

Here are some more ideas that I had for some greeting cards. I thought the flower one could be used as a sympathy card. I quite enjoyed doing my hand lettering, think it's a bit more personal than using a font. All these designs are available to license. I'm now am off to try out some more ideas x

Tortoise Tuesday!

A wee experiment that I did today. I made this as a present for my friend who has just had a baby! Looking forward to putting it in a nice mount to bring out the greens. I enjoyed making scratchy paint textures and incorporating that into the drawing, I think it works quite well. :)

Card designs

I am trying to come up with some designs for a range of greeting cards to go into my Etsy shop. This is my first design using an earlier drawing of teapot and cups, However I now think it looks more like a book cover! I made the background using paint and a large brush. I'm also experimenting with lettering and creating my own "fonts". I had a lot of fun making this one and have got my thinking hat on for some more ideas!

Etsy shop now open!

I have now opened an shop on Etsy! I am very excited and looking forward to making lots more work to put on there. This is an example of one of my prints which you can buy on Etsy. The print is called Catching Fish and is inspired by the lively fishing community in the town of Findochty (which is where I live.) Etsy is a lovely website where you can buy handmade items from a wide variety of very talented artists and makers from all over the world. You can click on the link on my blog to see my shop.

Butterflies

Have been busy experimenting with layering and transparency settings in Photoshop. This is a detail of a spread I did yesterday based on Butterflies. I'm quite happy with it and think it will start many more pieces using the layering theme, exciting times!

Cockerel

I am experimenting with pattern and texture in my work at the moment and had fun making this Cockerel. It took me a while to get his eye and beak right as I wanted him to look happy, a proud Cockerel. Hope you like it, I think this may start a series of bird pics. Better get sketching...

Lacy Teapot (with cakes..)

Just what it says on the tin.. This is what I was working on today.

Happy Easter!

As it's getting ever closer to Easter I am working on some Easter themed drawings. Here is a sneaky peak at a character drawing from my sketchbook. 

Here is the character after adding colour and background. 

Housey on a Hill

A little background experiment I have been working on recently. I am trying to use more texture in my work. I am experimenting with scanning in relief rubbings and also messing around with photos of my plants in Photoshop. I got the "bark" rubbings from some textured wallpaper from B&Q :). My husband bought me Photoshop CS5 for my birthday and am loving the effects that it allows you to create. The next job on my list is to develop some characters. Looking forward to trying out all the different types of brushes and hoping to get some lovely line drawings.