Mail Me Maybe?

Happy Friday!

Apologies for not posting for a few weeks. No, Free Textures Friday hasn't been cancelled. I just had to pause it for a little while due to the need to focus on a few other projects first. It shall resume next Friday and the theme will be "diverse denim".

Kay, but today I'll show you a few process steps for my latest little illustration I call "Mail Me Maybe?"

One of my fellow illustrators - Patrick Wong {his site here}- told me about this show happening in New York at the A.I.R. Gallery which I couldn't help but want to submit something into. The show is called "Wish You Were Here 12" and here's a little bit about it from their website:

Artists & Friends of A.I.R. Gallery:
We invite you to participate in our yearly benefit postcard show:
Wish You Were Here 12: June 27 - July 21, 2013 Reception: Thursday, June 27th, 6 - 8:30 pm
Last year's exhibit featured work by over 400 artists from as far afield as Australia and Guyana. This year we hope you will join us in our mission to provide leadership and community to women in the arts by exhibiting your work in Wish You Were Here 12. Artists of all mediums including writers and musicians are encouraged to donate.
**All the proceeds of this exhibition help fund our programs, including our Fellowship Program for under-represented and emerging women artists.

I got to work as soon as I could, though not without technical difficulties which derailed me a little. I roughly knew what I wanted to do right away so I just threw down some quick compositional thumbs to help me decide whether I wanted to work horizontally or vertically:

thumbs

My plan was to illustrate the endangered Scissor-Tailed Hummingbird (Hylonympha macrocerca), since I wasn't able to incorporate him into my Mail Me Art 3 piece along with the other endagered little guys. And to go with the whole post card/wish you were here theme, I was going to incorporate some envelopes into the piece as well.
So I got some paper, penciled and inked him. But then I discovered that the paper didn't like the ink too well and that it would erase along with the pencil...

inks 1.0

Instead of starting over entirely - I scanned what I had in and printed it on some thicker bristol paper I normally use. I printed the inks at around 20% though, so that I could re-ink on top and change it up a little. Eventually it looked something like this:

inks 2.0

 And then I coloured it with my usual mix of coloured waterproof inks, watercolour, and gouache and it was done! 

finished

I'm sad to say that it all came together a bit last minute and I mailed it out yesterday, but hopefully it will arrive safely in time, before the due date of June 7th!
 
Bristol Smooth Paper
Size: 4 x 6"
Media: microns, waterproof inks, watercolour paints, and gouache

Have a good weekend! And send someone a postcard or a card! They'll be so surprised! It will be awesome:)

Hitching a Ride on a Hummerfly

Here's the latest little illustration that I've been working on. Ages ago I had this sketch of cute creature that was a hybrid of a hummingbird and a butterfly. Wouldn't it be amazing if these were real? Anyway, I've been wanting to bring him to completion now and then, and so finally last week I started working on him, or maybe her...I'm actually not sure anymore. I've been craving to paint something fun, patterned, and whimsical and what better time than the present.

First, I traced the general features of the initial sketch on to my paper. Then, I made some adjustments to it, using hummingbird, butterfly, and birds of paradise references.

And then came my favourite part - the inking. I just love inking so much. I'll need to do some black and white line and silhouette based pieces soon, I think.

inks

Then, it was time to get to work on the colour. I've been wanting to do a pink/red/green piece for a while, so it was exciting to finally go for it. Though, I've gotta admit, I was quite weary of it coming out looking too "Christmasy". So, I decided to print out my ink on a piece of draft paper and quickly map out the colours.

colour study

Feeling more confinement I started layering down the colour on the good paper.

base colours

And then some shading to create a little volume was in order.

shading

Then it was time for the background. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do at first - to be more painterly or more pattern influenced. In the end patterns won and many, many circles began to appear.

background pt. 1

Finally, to finish off, I filled in those circles with even more circles and did some light shadowing around the Hummefly and some random "ink blossoms" as I call them around the rest of the background.

And there we have it!

Finished piece. Look at those lazy butterflies trying to hitch a ride.

Size: 6 x 10"
Media: Waterproof coloured inks + watercolour + gouache + microns


I kind of like to think of this as a "sister" illustration to the Carpe Diem Carpe Noctem firebirds painting I did last summer. They both have an elongated format, bird imagery, and patterned backgrounds. =)

Also, drawing the little Hummerlfy made me think of the song "Oranges on Appletrees" by A-Ha.

"Oranges on apple trees
Birds that mate with bumblebees
One big happy family
Endless possibilities"

Haha, just saying. Anyway, enough rambling. Good night and/or good morning!

Freebie Friday - Green Dream Textile Textures

Yes, more textile resource week:)

Today I'm contrasting last week's theme by putting up some green patterned textile textures. Enjoy!

Again, feel free to use these resources for personal or professional projects but please:

Do not claim the original resource images as your own,
Do not redistribute commercially. Basically, don't save and sell the resources as your own, but by all means do share the link to this page with others. :)
Do not use these textures as a base to create your own stock art/resources.

And, please share anything you've made with these resources with me. I'd love to have a look! =)

*In quick other news - I'm almost done a new little illustration. Lots of process documentation for that one. Stay tuned=)

Happy Friday!